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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2021 with funding from 
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The 
MOFFATT 
NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY 


Based on The New Translation by the 
REV. PROFESSOR JAMES MOFFATT, D.D. 
and under his Editorship 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL 


TO THE 


PHILIPPIANS 


The Moffatt 
New Testament Commentary 


Now Ready 
THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 


BY T. H. ROBINSON, M.A., D.D. 


THE GENERAL EPISTLES 


BY JAMES MOFFATT, D.D. 


JOHN 
BY G. H. C. MACGREGOR, M.Asy 
GLASGOW 
PHILIPPIANS 


BY J. H. MICHAEL, M.A., VICTORIA 
COLLEGE, TORONTO 


In Preparation 
LUKE 
BY W. MANSON, D.D., NEW COLLEGE, 
EDINBURGH 


EPHESIANS 
BY E. F. SCOTT, D.D., UNION THEO= 
LOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK 


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THE MOFFATT BIBLE 


A NEW TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 
BY JAMES MOFFATT, D.D. 
In One V olume 


Also New ‘TrsTaMENT separately 
VARIOUS EDITIONS 


THE 
EPISTLE OF PAUL 


TO THE 


PHILIPPIANS 


BY THE REY. 
J. HUGH MICHAEL 
M.A. 
Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Literature 
Emmanuel College and Victoria College, in the 
University of Toronto 





HARPER AND BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 


New York Anp Lonpbon 


EDITOR’S PREFACE 
MOFFATT’S NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY 


THE aim of this commentary is to bring out the religious 
meaning and message of the New Testament writings. To 
do this, it is needful to explain what they originally meant 
for the communities to which they were addressed in the 
first century, and this involves literary and historical criticism ; 
otherwise, our reading becomes unintelligent. But the New 
Testament was the literature of the early Church, written 
out of faith and for faith, and no study of it is intelligent 
unless this aim is kept in mind. It is literature written for a 
religious purpose. ‘ These are written that ye might believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.’ This is the real 
object of the New Testament, that Christians might believe 
it better, in the light of contemporary life with its intellectual 
and moral problems. So with any commentary upon it. 
Everything ought to be subordinated to the aim of elucidating 
the religious content, of showing how the faith was held in 
such and such a way by the first Christians, and of making 
clear what that faith was and is. 

The idea of the commentary arose from a repeated demand 
to have my New Testament translation explained; which 
accounts for the fact that this translation has been adopted 
as a convenient basis for the commentary. But the contri- 
butors have been left free to take their own way. If they 
interpret the text differently, they have been at liberty to 
say so. Only, as a translation is in itself a partial com- 
mentary, it has often saved space to print the commentary 
and start from it. 

As everyman has not Greek, the commentary has been 
written, as far as possible, for the Greekless. But it is based 

V 


EDITOR’S PREFACE 


upon a first-hand study of the Greek original, and readers 
may rest assured that it represents a close reproduction of 
the original writers’ meaning, or at anyfrate of what we 
consider that to have been. Our common aim has been to 
enable everyman to-day to sit where these first Chnstians sat, 
to feel the impetus and inspiration of the Christian faith as 
it dawned upon the minds of the communities in the first 
century, and thereby to realize more vividly how new and 
lasting is the message which prompted these New Testament 
writings to take shape as they did. Sometimes people 
inside as well as outside the church make mistakes about 
the New Testament. They think it means this or that, 
whereas its words frequently mean something very different 
from what traditional associations suggest. The saving thing 
is to let the New Testament speak for itself. This is our desire 
and plan in the present commentary, to place each writing 
or group of writings in its original setting and allow their 
words to come home thus to the imagination and conscience 
of everyman to-day. 

The general form of the commentary is to provide a running 
comment on the text, instead of one broken up into separate 
verses. But within these limits, each contributor has been 
left free. Thus, to comment on a gospel requires a method 
which is not precisely the same as that necessitated by 
commenting on an epistle. Still, the variety of treatment 
ought not to interfere with the uniformity of aim and form. 
Our principle has been that nothing mattered, so long as the 
reader could understand what he was reading in the text of 
the New Testament. 


JAMES MOFFATT, 


PREFACE 


THERE were within my reach as I wrote this exposition of 
Philippians the Commentaries of Lipsius and Dibelius, the 
majority of recent English works on the epistle, Bengel’s 
Gnomon, the quaint Commentary of John Trapp, as well as the 
Welsh Commentary of T. Isfryn Hughes. The articles on the 
epistle in the various Bible Dictionaries and in the Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica have been consulted, as have also the Intro- 
ductions of Zahn, Moffatt, and Goguel. I do not suppose there 
is one of these works to which I am not in some measure 
beholden. 

I have not been able to resist the force of the arguments 
that have been adduced in recent years in favour of Ephesus 
as the place in which the epistle was written. These argu- 
ments have been collected and well set forth by Professor 
Clayton R. Bowen in two articles in the American Journal of 
Theology, vol. xxiv, nos. 1 and 2 (January and April 1920). I 
desire to acknowledge my special obligation to these articles 
in Section 5 of the Introduction. 

HOM: 


May 17th, 1927. 


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INTRODUCTION 


§z. PAUL AND PHILIPPI 


THERE is no more vivid passage in the Acts of the Apostles 
than the brief paragraph in chap. 16 which describes how 
Paul came to enter Macedonia for the first time (vers. 6-10). 
It is here—at ver. ro—that the first of the ‘ we ’-sections of 
Acts begins. Accompanied by Silas, Timotheus, and the 
diarist (who is also in all probability the histonan), Paul makes 
his way to Philippi. The city is described as ‘the Roman 
colony of Philippi, which is the foremost town of the district 
of Macedonia’ (ver. 12). Thestory of the events that occurred 
during the Apostle’s stay in the city is told with great vivid- 
ness. Here Lydia, ‘a dealer in purple, who belonged to the 
town of Thyatira,’ was converted, and baptized ‘ along with her 
household ’ (vers. 13-15) ; here, too, the slave-girl ‘ possessed 
by a spirit of ventriloquism ’ lost the power which made her a 
source of gain to her owners when Paul ordered the spirit out 
of her in the name of Jesus Christ (vers. 16-18). The outcome 
of this was that Paul and Silas were arrested, flogged, and 
put into prison. There follows a graphic account of the earth- 
quake ‘ which shook the very foundations of the prison,’ of 
the conversion of the jailer, who was baptized with all his 
family, of the release of the apostles and their refusal to leave 
the city until the praetors, alarmed by the discovery that they 
had flogged and imprisoned Roman citizens, had come in 
person entreating them to depart, and, finally, of their depar- 
ture after they had encouraged the brethren assembled in the 
house of Lydia (vers. 19-40). 

Some five years later, at the close of his ministry in Ephesus, 
Paul ‘went his way to Macedonia’ (Acts 20:1). We may 
assume that Philippi was visited on this occasion, for we read 

ix | 


INTRODUCTION 


that the Apostle passed ‘ through the districts of Macedonia, 
. .. encouraging the people at length.’ From Macedonia he 
went to Greece, where he spent three months. He returned 
through Macedonia on his last journey to Jerusalem. We are 
told that he sailed from Philippi ‘ after the days of unleavened 
bread’ (Acts 20 : 2-6). 


§2. THE CiTy OF PHILIPPI 


The history of the city in which Christianity first took root 
in Europe stretches far back beyond the time when it received 
the name of ‘ Philippi’ from Philip of Macedon, the father of 
Alexander the Great. Influenced by its strategic position and 
by the gold-mines in its vicinity, Philip refounded the city. It 
was in the neighbourhood of Philippi that Octavian and 
Antony in 42 B.c. defeated the Republican forces under 
Brutus and Cassius. Octavian made it a military colony, 
bestowing upon it the Ius Italicum, which conferred various 
privileges on its citizens. The narrative of Acts 16 reflects the 
pride of the inhabitants in their Roman citizenship. Their 
duumviri are styled ‘ praetors’ (vers. 20, 22, 35, 36, 38), and 
the attendants are ‘lictors’ (vers. 35, 38). Their pride 
reveals itself also in the words spoken by the owners of the 
slave-girl when they bring Paul and Silas before the praetors. 
‘These fellows,’ they say, ‘are Jews who are making an 
agitation in our town; they are proclaiming customs which 
as Romans we are not allowed to accept or observe!’ (vers. 
20, 21). When in 31 B.c. Octavian defeated Antony at the 
battle of Actium, the victor refounded the city of Philippi, 
settling there some of the defeated followers of Antony. The 
number of Jews in the city appears to have been small. 


§ 3. THE GENUINENESS OF THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


The genuineness of our epistle is taken for granted by 
almost all modern scholars. From time to time, however, its 
claim has been disputed on various grounds; but even to 
enumerate these grounds is no longer necessary. The letter 
exhibits all the tokens of Pauline authorship, and no apparent 

x 





INTRODUCTION 


motive for fabrication suggests itself. Allusions to it are to 
be found in several second-century writers, and the influence 
of its thought and language is seen even in the early letter of 
Clement of Rome to the Church in Corinth. 


§ 4. DOES THE EPISTLE CONTAIN AN INTERPOLATION ? 


In the middle of the first verse of chap. 3 there occurs a 
sudden and unexpected change of tone and subject. This 
change has given rise to much discussion. Some scholars 
would divide our epistle at this point into two distinct letters. 
One writer—Heinrichs—has suggested that 3:1-4:19 is 
a letter addressed to the leaders of the Philippian Church, 
and I : I-2: 30, 4: 21-23, a letter addressed to the Church as 
a whole; but this suggestion has little to commend it. 

Among those who think the epistle contains an interpolated 
passage is Kirsopp Lake. In an article on the ‘Critical 
Problems of the Epistle to the Philippians’ in the Expositor 
(June 1914) he argues for the presence of an interpolation 
extending from 3:10 to 4:3. The majority of scholars, 
however, see no necessity for postulating an interpolation at 
all. They think the sudden change at the beginning of chap. 3 | 
may be adequately accounted for by the effect on Paul either 
of some disturbing occurrence at the place at which he was 
writing, or else of some happening at Philippi news of which 
had just reached him. Of these two suggestions the latter is 
much the more probable, for it is in the highest degree unlikely 
that the Apostle would break out into the passionate invective 
of chap. 3 because of some occurrence in his own vicinity and 
not say one word regarding the cause of the sudden outburst. 

The sudden change, however, is difficult to account for except 
on the hypothesis of interpolation. The main cause of the 
general reluctance to recognize the presence of an interpolation 
is the difficulty felt by many of discovering a place at which the 
interpolation manifestly comes to an end. But is not the 
close of ver. 19 a place at which it naturally ends? Beyond 
all doubt ver. 20 in the true text opens with ‘ for,’ not with 
‘but,’ as in our translation. When ‘for’ is read, ver. 20 does 

x1 


INTRODUCTION 


not follow at all easily after ver. 19, whereas it follows most 
naturally after ver. 1a. It is true that attempts have been 
made to attach ver. 20 in its true and original form to ver. 19, 
but they cannot be said to be convincing. The appropriateness 
of the sequence is immediately evident when ver. 20 follows 
ver. Ia: ‘ Well then, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord, for we 
are a colony of heaven.’ This new arrangement reminds us of 
the words of Jesus spoken on the return of the Seventy : 
‘Rejoice because your names are enrolled in heaven’ (Luke 
10 : 20); and there are other hints discernible in Paul’s words 
that the Lucan passage was in his mind as he wrote. All this 
helps to confirm the suggestion that the section of chap. 3_ 
extending from ver. 10 to ver. Ig is an interpolation. (See the 
article entitled ‘The Philippian Interpolation: Where does 
it End ?’ in the Expositor for January 1920.) In the present 
commentary the section is treated as an interpolation. It is 
undoubtedly from the pen of Paul, but for whom it was first 
written and how it came to be embedded in our epistle are 
questions which may never be answered. Perhaps it originally 
formed part of another letter sent to Philippi. The hypothesis 
that the interpolation ends at 3:19 is much more probable 
than the theory of Kirsopp Lake, according to which, as we 
have seen, it extends as far as 4:3; for surely the first three 
verses of chap. 4 attest themselves unmistakably as belonging 
not to the interpolation but to Philippians proper. Attempts 
have been made to discover points of connexion between the 
verses which we regard as interpolated and the rest of the 
epistle, with the object of discrediting the theory of inter- 
polation, but the attempts are not convincing. 


§ 5. WHERE WAS PAUL WHEN HE WROTE THE EPISTLE ? 


From the epistle itself we learn that the Apostle was a 
prisoner when he wrote it. The Acts of the Apostles records 
imprisonments at Philippi, Caesarea, and Rome. Philippi, of 
course, is ruled out, and until quite recent times the discussion 
of the place of origin resolved itself into an examination of the 
rival claims of Caesarea and Rome. 

(a) The claims of Rome are much stronger than those of 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 


Caesarea, and are looked upon as conclusive by most scholars. 
They may be summarized as follows :— 

(r) It is known that Paul was imprisoned in Rome. 

(2) Reference is made in I : 13 to the praetorian guard, whose 
headquarters were in Rome. 

(3) In 4: 22 greetings are sent from the saints among the 
Imperial slaves. 

(4) The general situation reflected in the epistle is said to 
suit Rome. The Church in the place at which Paul is 
imprisoned is strong and energetic, and the Apostle is facing 
the possibility of execution. 

(5) Paul associates Timotheus with himself in the salutation, 
as he does in the salutations of Colossians and Philemon, 
which are presumed to have been written in Rome. 

(6) There is a certain amount of early tradition in favour 
of Rome, such as that of the Monarchian Prologue to the 
epistle. 

Until quite recent times these reasons were regarded by 
most writers as establishing the Roman hypothesis beyond the 
possibility of contradiction. 

(0) Now, however, the claims of another city are being 
advanced by an influential group of scholars. This city is 
Ephesus, and the scholars who recognize its claims include 
Lisco, Albertz, Feine, Lake, Goguel, C. R. Bowen, and A. H. 
McNeile. Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, pp. 229, 
230) and E. W. Winstanley (Exposstor, June 1915, pp. 495, 496) 
both incline to the view that Philippians comes from an 
Ephesian imprisonment, though they are less certain in its 
case than in the case of the other prison epistles. A full and 
exhaustive statement of the case for Ephesus is given by 
Bowen in two articles entitled ‘ Are Paul’s Prison Letters from 
Ephesus?’ which appeared in the American Journal of 
Theology for January and April 1920 (vol. xxiv, nos. I and 2). 

Of the six reasons enumerated above in favour of Rome, 
the last-mentioned is not of much moment, for the early 
tradition is meagre, and may only be an example of ‘ the 
guesswork which is honoured as “‘tradition”’’ (Moffatt, 
Hebrews, p. ix). Of the remaining five, there is not one that 

xi 


ry 
i 


INTRODUCTION 


is not as applicable to Ephesus as it is to Rome. Let us 
consider them from this point of view. 

(rt) It can be shown beyond the possibility of reasonable 
doubt that Paul was imprisoned at Ephesus. See Bowen, as 
above, and also B. W. Robinson in the Journal of Biblical 
Literature for 1910, pp. 181-9. Not much importance need 
be attached to the fact that a building at Ephesus is called 
‘ Paul’s Prison,’ though the absence from the New Testament 
of any definite mention of an Ephesian imprisonment lessens 
the probability that the name of the building is an attempt 
to provide support for a mere inference. Of more account 
is the reference to an imprisonment at Ephesus in the Apocry- 
phal Acts of Paul (see M. R. James, A pocryphal New Testament, 
pp. 291, 292). The Monarchian Prologue to Colossians tells 
in so many words that that epistle was written when Raul was 
a prisoner in Ephesus; and the suggestion of Corssen and 
Moffatt that the meaning of the statement is that Paul was 
in Ephesus as a prisoner on his way to Rome is not convincing 
in view of the detailed story of the voyage to Rome in the 
Acts of the Apostles. 

If Rom. 16 was sent to Ephesus, as may well have been the 
case, it is by no means far-fetched to see in vers. 4 and 7 
allusions to an imprisonment of Paul in that city. The First 
Epistle to the Corinthians was written at Ephesus, and in it 
Paul speaks of ‘ fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus ’ (15 : 32). 
If, as is quite possible, his words mean that he had literally 
faced wild beasts at Ephesus, that would place the question 
of an imprisonment in that city beyond all doubt. It is very 
probable that chaps. 10-13 of 2 Corinthians originally formed 
part of the painful letter which Paul sent to the Corinthians 
from Ephesus (see 2 Cor. 2:3, 4, 9, and 7:8, 12). Now, in 
2 Cor. 11 : 23 he speaks of being much ‘ in prisons ’—and the 
words were written before the imprisonments at Caesarea and 
Rome. They do not prove that the Apostle was imprisoned 
in Ephesus, but they strengthen the probability that he was. 
The testimony of 2 Cor. 1: 8-10 is more explicit. ‘Now I 
would like you to know,’ writes the Apostle, ‘ about the distress 
which befell me in Asia, brothers. I was crushed, crushed 

XiV 


INTRODUCTION 


far more than I could stand, so much so that I despaired 
even of life ; in fact I told myself it was the sentence of death. 
But that was to make me rely not on myself but on the God 
who raises the dead ; he rescued me from so terrible a death, 
he rescues still, and I rely upon him for the hope that he will 
continue to rescue me.’ The reference is probably to some 
experience that befell the Apostle in the city of Ephesus, and 
the words are most naturally understood of an actual con- 
demnation to death.and of an unexpected rescue when all hope 
had been abandoned. 

Goguel interprets 1 : 12 ff. of our epistle to mean that the 
preaching of the Gospel was temporarily checked by the arrest 
of the Apostle at the place in which he was imprisoned when 
he was writing (Introduction au Nouveau Testament, p. 376, 
especially note1). He does not think Paul came to the place 
as a prisoner, and it must be admitted that this is a natural 
interpretation of Paul’s words; and if it is the correct inter- 
pretation, it tells strongly in favour of Ephesus as against 
Caesarea and Rome. 

The silence of Luke in the Acts of the Apostles regarding 
an imprisonment at Ephesus may at first sight seem to con- 
stitute a strong argument against the view that the Apostle 
was imprisoned there—until we remind ourselves that Paul 
in his epistles makes mention of several experiences about 
which Luke is utterly silent. In 2 Cor. 11 : 25, for example, he 
says he was three times shipwrecked—and that was before the 
shipwreck on the voyage to Rome—but Acts does not mention 
any one of the three occasions. 

Other arguments have been brought forward against the 
view that Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus, but they fall far 
short of nullifying the cumulative force of the arguments that 
support the view. 

(z) The word translated ‘ praetorian guard’ in 1: 13 often 
denotes the official residence of the governor of a province; 
and as Ephesus was the virtual capital of the province of Asia, 
it follows that if Paul was writing from Ephesus the reference 
might be to the palace of the Proconsul. At the same time 
the rendering ‘ praetorian guard’ may be correct even if the 

XV ° 


INTRODUCTION 


letter was sent from Ephesus, for detachments of the praetorian 
guard were often sent to the provincial capitals, and as a matter 
of fact we possess inscriptional evidence of the presence of 
praetoriant at Ephesus (see, for example, McNeile, S¢. Paul, 
p. 229, note"). Clearly there is nothing in 1: 13 to preclude 
an Ephesian origin for our epistle. 

(3) The same may be said of 4:22. Rome was not the only 
place at which Imperial slaves were to be found. There is 
extant in this case also inscriptional evidence that favours the 
Ephesian hypothesis. We know that there existed in Ephesus 
associations of Imperial freedmen and slaves (see McNeile, 
loc. cit., note*, and Dibelius on 4: 22). 

(4) As to the general situation reflected in our epistle, it 
cannot be said to be less compatible with Ephesus than with 
Rome. We know from Acts 1g: 10 that the new iaith pros- 
pered greatly in Ephesus as the result of Paul’s ministry. 
Nothing is said or implied in our epistle regarding the Church 
at the place where Paul was writing but would suit the Church 
in Ephesus quite as well as it suits the Church in Rome. Nor 
is the fact that Paul is expecting his execution out of harmony 
with the situation at Ephesus. We have seen already that 
the words of 2 Cor. 1: 8-10 speak of an occasion on which 
the Apostle, as it seems, was condemned, and rescued from 
the very jaws of death. Moreover, in 2 Cor. 11 : 23 he writes: 
‘I have been often at the point of death’ ; and if that chapter 
was written at Ephesus, some of the episodes to which 
Paul refers may well have occurred in that city. If, again, 
Rom. 16 was sent to Ephesus, it is natural to see in ver. 4a 
reference to some experience in that city from which the 
Apostle was rescued through the intervention of Prisca and 
Aquila. It may be the same experience as the distress of 
2iCOVatend: 

(5) The association of Timotheus with Paul in the salutation 
of our epistle cannot be used as an argument for Rome as 
against Ephesus. Even if Colossians and Philemon, in each 
of which Timotheus’s name appears in the opening salutation, 
were written at Rome, we are not bound to conclude that 
Philippians must have been written there just because it also 

Xvi 


INTRODUCTION 


has his name in the salutation; and, furthermore, there is 
much to be said for the view, now held by many scholars, that 
Colossians and Philemon were written at Ephesus. 

We know that Timotheus was with Paul in Ephesus, whereas 
we have no knowledge, apart from that furnished by the 
prison epistles on the supposition of their Roman origin, of his 
being in Rome ; although, as Kennedy says, ‘ there is nothing 
to oppose the hypothesis that Timothy visited Rome ; in fact, 
it would be surprising if he had never seen his beloved master 
during so long a period of suspense ’ (Philippians, p. 405). We 
also know that Paul did send Timotheus from Ephesus to 
Macedonia (Acts Ig : 22), which harmonizes with the intention 
expressed in Phil. 2: 19-23, and that he went himself soon 
after, which accords with the confidence expressed in Phil. 
ZenZAt 

(c) The evidence furnished by the arguments considered so 
far is too evenly balanced to enable us to decide with any con- 
fidence either for Rome or for Ephesus. Are there, then, any 
considerations which will make it possible for us to reach a 
definite conclusion ? Some arguments that favour Ephesus 
may be mentioned first. 

(xr) At the time of his last journey to Jerusalem, Paul was 
minded to turn his face towards Italy and the West. His 
determination to visit Rome after he had been to Jerusalem 
is recorded in Acts 19: 21, and his words to the Ephesian 
elders reported in Acts 20 : 25 point to his intention of leaving 
the eastern sphere in which he had so far been labouring. He 
gives expression to the same desires and determinations in 
Rom. I: 10-15 and 15: 19-29. Vers. 23 and 24 of chap. 15 
contain an unequivocal statement of his determination to 
change the scene of his toil: ‘ But now, as I have no further 
scope for work in these parts, and as for a number of years I 
have had a longing to visit you whenever I went to Spain, I 
am hoping to see you on my way there, and to be sped forward 
by you after I have enjoyed your company for a while.’ In 
view of all this, is it in the least degree probable that in his 
prison in Rome he should contemplate paying the Philippians 
a visit immediately upon his liberation? That is what he is 

XVii 


INTRODUCTION 


contemplating in Phil. 1:25 and 2:24. This is a strong 
argument against Rome, and it tells with equal force against 
the Roman origin of Philemon, in which (ver. 22) the Apostle 
is hopeful of paying Colossae an early visit. 

(2) Although not without some slender hope of release, it 
is clear that when he wrote Philippians the Apostle in his 
inmost heart was expecting sentence of death. This also tells 
strongly for Ephesus and against Rome; for whatever may 
have been the actual issue of his Roman imprisonment, it is 
not likely that Paul at Rome expected a verdict of execution. 
Lightfoot (Philippians, pp. 3, 4) remarks that Paul’s accusers 
had every reason for not hastening his trial, because ‘ they 
must have foreseen plainly enough the acquittal of a person 
whom the provincial governor himself had declared to be 
innocent.’ But if the Apostle had no anticipation of death in 
Rome, he himself tells us that in Asia, which in all probability 
means in Ephesus, he at one time despaired even of life 
(2 Cor. x: 8, 9). 

(3) The resemblances between Philippians and the earlier 
epistles of Paul should also be considered in this connexion. 
They supply Lightfoot with one of his main arguments in his 
contention that Philippians was written earlier in the Roman 
imprisonment than were Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon 
(op. ctt., pp. 42-4). The resemblances are set forth fully and 
minutely by Bowen in the interests of the theory of Ephesian 
origin (American Journal of Theology, April 1920, pp. 277-84): 
He takes cognizance of similarities in the writer’s moods and 
situations as well as of resemblances in words and expressions. 
The use of similar words and expressions does not prove much, 
for we cannot think that only at one period of his life is a 
writer able to employ certain words and phrases. Similarities 
in mood and situation may, however, be used as evidence that 
two writings belong to the same period ; and such similarities 
are discernible between our epistle and some of Paul’s earlier 
writings. The mood that lies behind the words of 2 Cor. 5 : I-g 
is similar to that which led to the writing of Phil. 1 : 21-23, 
and Bowen suggests that the warmth of the Apostle’s state- 
ment of his gratitude to the Macedonians in 2 Cor. 8 : I-5 may 

XViil 


INTRODUCTION 


not unnaturaliy be supposed to be aue in part to their personal 
kindness to himself. ; 

Then there are similar situations. Some of the affiictions 
caronicled in 2 Cor. 6: 4, 5 must surely have belonged to the 
Ephesus period; and if so, the Apostle while in Ephesus 
must have been in just the condition that would move the 
Philippians to send him aid. We have already seen that 
Timotheus was as a matter of fact sent from Ephesus to 
Macedonia (see Acts 19:22, and compare Phil. 2: 19-23). 
We also know from Acts 19:21, r Cor. 16:5, 2 Cor. 1: 16, 
that Paul was minded to go from Ephesus to Macedonia 
(compare Phil. 1: 25,2:24). Acts 20:1, 2 Cor.2:13, 7:5, 
show that the intention was carried out. 

(4) We have argued in an earlier section of this Introduction 
that 3 : 16-19 of our epistie is an interpoiation. If, however, 
these verses were a part of the onginal letter, that would 
sirongly support the earlier daie, inasmuch as the period of 
keen Judaistic controversy, to which it manifestly belongs, 
was past when the Apostle was taken to Rome. The para- 
graph exhibits some striking resemblances to 2 Cor. II, a 
chapter that probably formed part, as we have seen, of the 
painful letter sent from Ephesus to Corinth. Compare 
especialiy Phil. 3:2 with 2 Cor. 11:13, Phil. 3:3 with 
2iCoreiiis6;) andi Phils*/4 fii.with 2:Cor/ 17 sar ff. 

(5) The journeyings implied in our epistle between Philippi 
and the place of Paul’s imprisonment would be more intel- 
ligible if that piace was Ephesus. The route of travel between 
Philippi and Rome is about 840 miies, and at that time 
the single journey took a whoie month. Particularly signifi- 
cant is Paul’s expectation that he will be enheartened by 
news sent to him from Philippi after Timotheus has arrived 
there (2: 19) ; anc yet Timotheus was not to leave the Apostle 
until he knew whether his imprisonment was to issue in 
release or in condemnation! Is it at all probable that, in 
the event of an adverse verdict, the Apostle would expect 
the round trip between Rome and Philippi to be completed 
in the time that would elapse between the giving of the verdict 
and the execution? Even if we place the imprisonment at 

xix 


INTRODUCTION 


Ephesus, it is not easy to see how the double journey could 
be accomplished in the interval between the Apostle’s con- 
demnation and execution ; but the difficulty is much increased 
if he was in Rome. It may be that we are taking his words 
too literally: perhaps it was only in the event of his release 
that he expected news to reach him. Be that as it may, the 
manner in which the Apostle expresses himself in 2 : 24 shows 
that he was not without hope of being with the Philippians 
soon ; and it is difficult to believe that he would have expressed 
himself just as he does if the long double journey between 
Rome and Philippi had to be undertaken before he himself 
could set out. It must be admitted, however, that whereas 
the Ephesian hypothesis renders less acute the problems 
raised by this paragraph concerning the sending of Timotheus 
(2: 19-24), it does not solve them altogether and thereby 
remove the grounds for suspecting its genuineness which are 
set forth in the notes on the passage. 

(dq) Let us now look at the arguments that have been 
brought against the hypothesis of Ephesian origin. 

(1) It has been urged that if Philippians was written from 
Ephesus it would inevitably have contained some reference 
to the collection for the Jerusalem saints which the Apostle 
was at that time so strenuously promoting. See Maurice 
Jones, Philippians, p. xxxiv, and Moffatt, Introduction to the 
Literature of the N.T., third edition, Appendix C, p. 622. But 
there is not much force in this argument from silence, for we 
cannot decide what Paul must have said in any particular 
letter ; and there are considerations in the present case which 
make the omission appear less strange than it otherwise 
would have been. Paul had already, as we shall see presently, 
sent a letter to the Philippians after receiving the gift which 
they had sent by the hand of Epaphroditus ; and Epaphroditus 
was just about to leave for Philippi with the present letter. 
Moreover, Timotheus (if we can accept the testimony of 
2: 19-23) would be going soon, and the Apostle had some 
hope of going himself (2:24). Under these circumstances it 
is not surprising that our epistle should make no mention of 
the collection. 

XX 


INTRODUCTION 


(2) Jones (on pp. xxxiv, xxxv) employs another argument. 
He urges that inasmuch as the Corinthian epistles were 
written in a stormy and turbulent period of the Apostle’s 
life, the agitation would of necessity have been reflected in our 
epistle had it been written in the same period. But surely 
we may think that, with death staring him in the face, the 
Apostle could write to his friends at Philippi just such a 
note as we find in our epistle. 

(ec) What conclusion are we to draw in regard to the place 
of origin? The arguments that have been adduced against 
the Ephesian hypothesis seem to us to have much less force 
than those that have been urged in its favour. The epistle, 
we conclude, was composed when Paul was a prisoner at 
Ephesus. 


§6. THE DATE OF THE EPISTLE 


Paul spent over two years in Ephesus, leaving, as it seems, j é 
in the year.55; Whether our epistle was written early or 
late in the Ephesian period it is impossible to say. Feine 
places it after 1 Corinthians, about half-way through the 
stay at Ephesus. Goguel places it before 1 Corinthians, but 
late in the Ephesian period—‘ towards the end of the year 55.’ 

Of those who maintain the Roman origin of our epistle 
there is scarce one who does not reject the view of Lightfoot, 
by whom it is placed early in the Roman imprisonment. If 
it was written in Rome, it is almost certain that it should be 
assigned to the closing period of the imprisonment. 


§ 7. PREVIOUS CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE PHILIPPIANS, 
AND THE OCCASION OF THE PRESENT LETTER 


Paul had received from Philippi a gift brought by Epaphro- 
ditus (4:18). With the gift would come a letter, just as a 
letter—the present epistle—went to Philippi when Epaphro- 
ditus was sent back. There are several indications that Paul 
had replied to the letter that came with the gift before he 
dispatched our epistle, and that the Philippians had written 
again, expressing their displeasure at something the Apostle 

XX1 


INTRODUCTION 


had said in his last letter to them. They seem to have sus- 
pected a lack of adequate appreciation on his part. It is to 
this second letter from Philippi that Paul is replying in our 
epistle. The evidence on which these corclusions are based 
is to be found in the main in vers. 10-20 of chap. 4, and is set 
forth in detail in the notes on that paragraph. This reading 
of the situation finds support in other places in the epistle, as 
is shown by the fact that Zahn arrives at these conclusions 
with but little help from 4 : 10-20. 

It was the intention of the Philippians that Epaphroditus 
should remain with Paul so long as the Apostle had need of 
him. And right worthily had he played his part. His 
devotion to Paul brought on an illness that was all but mortal. 
As he recovered, he yearned to be back in Philippi. Paul 
was quick to discern his longing, and resolved to send him 
back. This was the more immediate occasion of the writing 
of our epistle. Paul explains why he is sending him back, 
and bespeaks for him a cordial welcome (2 : 25-30). 

Besides this he had other objects in writing: 

(a) To tell the Philippians of his intention to send Timotheus 
(2: 19-23), and of his hope that he may be able himself to 
visit them soon (2: 24). 

(b) To answer their inquiries about his welfare and his 
prospects, and to assuage their concern regarding the effect 
of his imprisonment on the fortunes of the Gospel. 

(c) To urge them to be united, steadfast, and even joyful 
in the face of pagan persecution. 

(2) To disabuse their minds regarding the lack of apprecia- 
tion with which they had wrongly charged him. 


Written as it was under the shadow of a dark and ominous 
cloud, the epistle resounds with the note of joy. It is one of 
the priceless treasures of the Christian Church. To countless 
pilgrims on the way of life it has brought comfort and strength, 
and it will continue so to do so long as time shall last. 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE: PHITIPPIANS 
CHAPTER I 


THE OPENING SALUTATION (I. I, 2) 


Paul and Timotheus, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints 
in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, as well as to the bishops 
and deaccns: grace and peace to you from God our Father 
and the Lord Jesus Christ. | 


Paul cannot even write a brief salutation without revealing 
the great commanding passion of his life—his devotion to the 
Saviour whose name occurs three times in these two verses. 
The three occurrences of the name of Christ are the pivots of 
the present salutation: they speak of a relation to Christ 
(servants of Christ Jesus), of a state 7m Christ (saints in Christ 
Jesus), and of a blessing from Christ and from the Father 
(grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord 
Jesus Christ). 

Paul associates Timotheus with himself, as he also does in 
the salutations of 2 Corinthians, Colossians, r and 2 Thessa- 
lonians, and Philemon. Timotheus, which is the Latin form of 
the name, is used uniformly in our translation throughout the 
New Testament. The R.V. as uniformly has the form 
‘Timothy.’ The A.V. inconsistently uses both forms, having 
Timotheus seventeen times and Timothy seven times. In the 
present passage it has Timotheus. In 2 Cor. 1 both forms occur 
in the same chapter, Timothy in ver. 1 and Timotheus in 
ver. 19! 

Although Timotheus is brought into the salutation, he is not 
joint-author with Paul, for the letter is written in the first 
person singular from I : 3 to the end, and in 2 : 19-23 Timotheus 
is spoken of in the third person. Why, then, is his name intro- 
duced into the salutation at all? Some see in the mention of 
his name a mere act of courtesy on the part of Paul. But it 

i 


THE EPISTLEV OF CPAULCIO THERPHILIPPIANS 


was not the habit of the Apostle to show this courtesy to all 
those who happened to be with him when he was writing a 
letter. The presence of the name is sometimes explained on 
the ground that Timotheus must have acted as amanuensis. 
Others find the explanation in Paul’s desire to impress upon 
the Philippians that they should receive Timotheus with due 
respect when he should come to them ; but surely the words 
of 2: 19-23 would suffice to ensure for Timotheus the right 
kind of welcome, if the Philippians needed any reminder of the 
respect due to him. There must be some other explanation. 
There can be detected in one place in the epistle, as we shall 
see, a gentle though quite distinct note of censure, and it is not 
impossible that Paul introduces the name of Timotheus into 
the opening greeting in order to intimate to his readers that the 
censure has the sanction of his concurrence. 

Paul does not in the present salutation describe himself as an 
‘apostle,’ as he does in the salutations of Romans, I and 2 
Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians, and as he is 
styled in the salutations of 1 and 2 Timotheus and Titus. Only 
in the Macedonian epistles (that is, r and 2 Thessalonians, and 
Philippians) and in the private letter to Philemon is that 
designation wanting. In 2 Corinthians and Colossians, the only 
two letters in which Paul both calls himself an apostle and also 
associates Timotheus with himself, he is careful to apply the 
title to himself alone. The description servants of Christ 
Jesus, which is used in our salutation, is applicable to both 
alike. In the greetings of Romans and Titus both terms, 
apostle and servant, are used. 

In the Macedonian epistles and Philemon, Paul abstains 
from calling himself an apostle presumably because his 
relation with his correspondents rendered unnecessary 
any emphasis on the authority pertaining to him as an 
apostle. 

The word rendered servants is the ordinary Greek word for 
‘slaves.’ Servants is too weak a rendering, and yet ‘slaves’ 
would err in the opposite direction, as it would connote an 
absence of freedom utterly alien to the conception. In the 
Old Testament the prophets are often spoken of as the servants 

2 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-2 


of the Lord, and it may well be that Paul has here in mind the 
idea of a call and a service analogous to those of the prophets. 
Just as the prophets were the servants of Yahweh, so he and 
Timotheus are the servants of Christ Jesus. The term be- 
tokens utter self-surrender. Christ Jesus is their owner and 
master: they are his for life. Cf. Gal. 6:17. What more 
honourable and authoritative title than this, after all, could 
Paul have employed ? Others since his day, with a humility 
akin to his own, have in their letters spoken of themselves in 
similar fashion ; Savonarola, for example, begins his letters 
after this manner: ‘ Brother Jerome, by the mercy of God a 
servant of Jesus Christ,’ or ‘Brother Jerome, an unworthy 
servant of Jesus Christ.’ 

The salutation is addressed to all the saints in Christ Jesus 
who are at Philippi. The word saints comes also in the 
salutations of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, and 
Colossians. The word ‘ecclesia,’ or church, which occurs in 
the salutations of r and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 and 2 
Thessalonians, and Philemon, belongs to the same circle of 
ideas. Both terms embody the conception of the Christian 
Church as the successor of Israel. The nation of Israel was 
holy unto the Lord, and of this holy nation the early Christian 
community regarded itself as the successor and heir. It is as 
members of the new ecclesia that the Philippians are addressed 
as saints. The compellation does not mean that each member 
was of necessity characterized by a faultless perfection, but it 
must have implied a responsibility to strive after a life in 
harmony with the character of the God whose “ saints’ they 
were. 

They are saints in Christ Jesus. It is in him that the new 
order consists. He is the sphere of all its operations. It was 
lack of faith in him that removed the nation of Israel from its 
privileged position, and it is faith in him that bestows mem- 
bership in the ecclesia that has taken its place. ‘In Christ’ 
or ‘in Christ Jesus’ is Paul’s great phrase to denote the close 
union subsisting between the believer and ‘his Lord ; he never 
once says ‘in Jesus Christ,’ the reason being that the reference 
is always to the glorified Christ. Slight though their present 


3 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


achievement may have been, the Philippians were saints in 
the glorified Christ ; in him was the pledge of what they were 
destined to become. ‘’Twas glorious to me,’ says Bunyan in 
Grace Abounding, ‘ to see His Exaltation, and the Worth and 
Prevalency of all His Benefits, and that because now I could 
look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those 
graces of God that now were green on me, were yet but like 
those crack-groats and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men 
carry in their Purses, when their Gold is in their Trunks at 
home! Oh, I saw my Gold was in my Trunk at home! In 
Christ, my Lord and Saviour!’ 

Paul addresses all the saints. The word all comes with 
great frequency in the verses that follow the salutation, as if 
Paul were anxious to make it clear to his readers at the outset 
that he does not countenance their dissensions. It may be 
that the same reason prompted him to address his opening 
greeting to all the saints, though the presence of all in the 
salutations of Romans and I and 2 Corinthians makes this 
doubtful. 

The saints addressed are at Philippi. The juxtaposition of 
in Christ Jesus and at Philippi is arresting. It is because they 
are 7m him that they remain faithful even at Philippi. We 
gather from our epistle that the malevolence that had caused 
Paul and his associates to depart from Philippi at the first 
was still harassing the company of believers. They were, 
however, rooted in Christ Jesus and so able to stand firm even 
at Philippi. 

No words in our epistle have occasioned more discussion 
than has the clause as well as to the bishops and deacons, 
Doubt has frequently been cast upon its genuineness, and the 
doubt is by no means unreasonable. Officials are not mentioned 
in any other Pauline salutation, and here the clause does not 
attach itself at all naturally to the context, for the bishops and 
deacons would be included in all the saints. This last difficulty 
may, however, be overcome by taking the clause as an after- 
thought, the Apostle suddenly deciding to emphasize the fact 
that the bishops and deacons are included within the scope of 
his greeting. In that case the meaning intended would be 


4 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-2 


“not omitting the bishops and deacons’; but that is not the 
sense of the Greek as it stands. 

Again, one is forced to admit that the words give the 
impression of belonging to a later date than that of Paul. 
The combination ‘ bishops and deacons’ meets us in Clement 
of Rome, who wrote at the very end of the first century, and 
in the Didaché, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, which 
probably belongs to the second century. It is not altogether 
easy to think that in Paul’s lifetime there existed at Philippi 
two distinct orders of officials. Some authorities, foremost 
among whom is Hort, do not give to the words bishops and 
deacons here their technical, official meaning. As they think, 
the words refer respectively to those who exercised oversight 
and to those who served in the Christian community at Philippi. 
If in this interpretation these two classes are meant to com- 
prise all the Christians at Philippi, the awkwardness with which 
the clause attaches itself to the context is more marked than 
in the case of the usual interpretation. But apart from this, 
the view that the words do not refer to two classes of officials 
is not satisfactory and has met with but scant favour with 
scholars. 

There are reasons enough, it must be admitted, to warrant 
the reluctance of those who hesitate to regard the clause as a 
part of the original salutation. On the other hand, it is by no 
means impossible that Paul may have written the words. The 
terms ‘ bishop ’ and ‘ deacon ’ are both found elsewhere in the 
New Testament denoting local church officials—the ministry 
attached to a church in a particular locality with functions 
administrative and pastoral. The New Testament and other 
early Christian documents make it clear that there existed 
also an itinerant or missionary ministry whose functions were 
mainly evangelistic. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, are 
the terms most commonly employed to denote the itinerant 
ministers. 

In the New Testament the word ‘ bishop’ is used only in 
connexion with Gentile Churches—those at Philippi, at 
Ephesus, and in Crete (Phil. 1: 1, Acts 20: 28, x Tim. 3: 1-7, 
Titus 1: 7-9). It is now generally recognized that in the New 

3 


THE EPISTLE OPS PAUL TOMPRE PAILIPPiANns 


Testament the terms ‘ bishop’ and ‘ presbyter’ refer to the 
same office (see Lightfoot, Philippians, pp. 95 ff.). The terms 
are synonymous also in Clement of Rome, while in the letter of 
Polycarp we have presbyters and deacons, but no mention of 
bishops. The words ‘ presbyter’ (which means ‘ elder’) and 
‘bishop’ (which means ‘ overseer ’) are seemingly descriptive 
of status and function respectively. 

The need for officials would soon be felt in the Christian 
communities, and it would be unreasonable to maintain that 
the Gentile Churches from the earliest days could not have had 
officials answering to the presbyters, or could not have called 
them ‘ bishops,’ for the term was common in the guilds and 
associations then so numerous, and was employed, as we know, 
even in ‘the technical religious diction of pre-Christian 
times’ (Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 231). The Philippian 
Christians may well have had church-officers whom they called 
‘bishops,’ and Paul may well have addressed them by that 
title. 

The word ‘ deacon’ (diakonos) is of frequent occurrence in 
the New Testament in its ordinary, non-technical sense of 
servant ; but apart from the present passage it occurs in its 
official sense only in 1 Tim. 3 : 8-12, a passage which does not 
belong to Paul. Proof exists that the term was used of reli- 
gious Officials in pre-Christian times (see Moulton and Milligan, 
Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, sub verbo; and Milligan’s 
note on 1 Thess. 3: 2). Improbable as it may seem, there is no 
a priori reason why the Christians at Philippi should not have 
had a second class of officials whom they called ‘ deacons.’ 

If the clause is from Paul, why does he introduce the bishops 
and deacons into the salutation ? The special mention of them 
in the greeting may have had some relation to the dissensions 
prevailing in the Church. Were the members wanting in due 
respect to the officials ? Is Paul desirous of showing that he, 
at any rate, regards them as worthy of respect ? 

It is frequently assumed that they are mentioned because of 
their special connexion with the gift which had come to Paul 
from Philippi. Paul was most eager to remove the impression 
which the Philippians seem to have formed that he was not 

6 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 1-2 


duly appreciative of their kindness (see on 4: 10-20). We 
learn from the Afostoltc Constitutions (third century) and 
from other sources that the deacons had the care of the 
Churches’ money, and it may be that this part of the work 
devolved on them early. It is possible that the deacons were 
the assistants of the bishops in money matters, both classes 
being concerned in the control of the finances, and that may 
account for the special reference to them in the greeting of our 
epistle. 

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord 
Jesus Christ—these words appear in precisely the same order 
in the salutations of Romans, r and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, 
and Philemon; and we find virtually the same words in the 
salutations of Galatians, 2 Thessalonians, and Titus. The 
words and the Lord Jesus Christ are wanting in Colossians. 
‘ Mercy ’ comes between grace and peace in 1 and 2 Timotheus. 
1 Thessalonians has simply ‘ Grace and peace to you.’ 

In the conventional epistolary salutations of the time the 
commonest form is the simple word ‘ greeting.’ In Greek this 
is chaivein, and we may well suppose that Paul was consciously 
enriching this everyday greeting when in his salutations he 
employed the word grace, which in Greek is charts. The 
change from chatrein to charts is a parabie of the enrichment 
of the commonplace by the new faith of Christ, which elevates 
a salutation into a benediction. The grace which the Apostle 
desires for his readers is the Divine favour—the love of God 
as it comes to man, in and through Christ, in redeeming and 
sanctifying potency. 

‘Peace be to you’ was the customary Hebrew formula of 
salutation (cf. Gen. 43 : 23). This also is enriched and ennobled 
in the hands of Paul, becoming much more than a conventional 
greeting. He desires for his readers peace in the deepest, fullest, 
and most comprehensive sense. 

The grace and peace are to come from God our Father and 
the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father is the ultimate source 
of all blessing. It was He who conferred on Jesus the Lord- 
ship (see 2:9) in virtue of which he is here ranked with the 
Father as giver of grace and peace. 


7 


THE EPISTLE ,OF PAUL TO\THE PHRILTIPPIANS 


JOYFUL THANKSGIVING AND CONFIDENT EXPECTATION O¥ 
PROGRESS (I. 3-7) 


3,4 I thank my God for all your remembrance of me ; in ail my 


3 
6 


7 


prayers for you all I always pray with a sense of joy 
for what you have contributed to the gospel from the very 
first day down to this moment; of this I am confident, 
that he who has begun the good work in you will go on 
completing it until the day of Jesus Christ. It is oniy 
natural for me to be thinking of you all in this way, for 
alike in my prison and as I defend and vindicate the gospel, 
I bear in mind how you all share with me in the grace divine. 


Not often do we find in so short a passage so many ambigui- 
ties of grammar as are to be found in the Greek of these five 
verses. 

In secular letters of the days of Paul it was the common 
practice to introduce, immediately after the opening saluta- 
tion, some reference to prayer. A second-century letter dis- 
covered in Egypt opens thus: ‘ Antoni(u)s Longus to Nilous, 
his mother many greetings. Continually 1 pray for your 
health. Supplication on your behalf I direct each day to the 
lord Serapis’ (see Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri, 
Pp. 93). 

Here again, as in his opening greeting, Paul upiifts and 
vivifies the conventional and the commonplace. In the 
paragraph now before us, even though some of its sentences 
are couched in the language of epistolary convention, the 
Apostie strikes the keynote of the whole epistle. He makes it 
evident at the outset how thorough is his appreciation of the 
Philippians and their doings, how firm his confidence in their 
future prospects; and this wealth of esteem and trust goes 
out to them all. The frequency with which the word ‘all’ 
occurs in these opening sentences is remarkable. ‘ There is,’ 
says Lightfoot, ‘ a studied repetition of the word “‘ all” in this 
epistle, when the Philippian Church is mentioned. It is 
impossible not to connect this recurrence of the word with the 
strong and repeated exhortations to unity which the epistle 

8 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 3-7 


contains. The Apostle seems to say, ‘‘I make no difference 
between man and man, or between party and party: my 
heart is open to all; my prayers, my thanksgivings, my hopes, 
my obligations, extend to all.”’ 

But there can be detected throughout the letter also a 
faint note of dissatisfaction. Paul’s joy in his readers is 
not complete (see 2:2). It is possible that this note is to 
be heard even in this opening paragraph. The Apostle tells 
his readers that it is his wont to pray for them with a sense of 
joy for what they had contributed to the gospel, and then 
adds words which affirm that this sense of joy is reinforced 
by his confidence that the good work already begun in them 
will be brought to completion. May we not think that he 
makes mention of this confidence in their future progress in 
part at least in order to convey the hint that his cup of joy is 
not yet full to the brim? He does not say in so many words 
that the Philippians are not all he desires them to be; rather, 
with unsurpassable delicacy, he tells them of his confidence 
that God will make them better ! 

Vers. 3-5 may be entitled ‘ A Joyful Thanksgiving,’ and vers. 
6 and 7 ‘ Confident Expectation of Progress.’ 

In spite of the association of Timotheus with himself in 
the opening greeting, Paul at once starts off in the first person 
singular, which is maintained to the very end of the letter. 
A few ancient authorities read ‘ I indeed thank my God,’ instead 
of the simpler I thank my God; and Zahn argues for the 
originality of that reading, believing that here in Philippians 
the less usual form of expression has been assimilated to the 
simpler and more usual form found in 1 Cor. 1: 4, Col. 1: 3, 
Philem. 4. Paul may well have laid emphasis on the personal 
pronoun, for he was aware that the Philippians suspected a 
lack of cordiality in his appreciation of the gift which they 
had sent to him. ‘ Whatever others may think or say,’ he 
seems to imply, ‘I for my part fully appreciate all that you 
have done.’ 

My God occurs also in 4: 19, as well as in Rom. 1: 8, 1 Cor. 
1: 4(?), and Philem. 4. The expression bespeaks a clear and 
certain consciousness of a personal relation to God. In 


9 


THEVEPISTLECOPRRAUL, TOR TRE CEERI E roy 


Acts 27 : 23, where Paul speaks of ‘ the God I belong to,’ we 
have the converse conception. 

The clause for all your remembrance of me presents one of 
the ambiguities to which reference has been made. The 
R.V. renders ‘ upon all my remembrance of you.’ Now, the 
translation in our text may well be the correct rendering. 
The preposition translated for may quite naturally bear the 
meaning ‘on the basis of,’ and according to this rendering 
Paul says that all the remembrance of him on the part of the 
Philippians forms a basis for his thanksgiving. This inter- 
pretation, which is accepted by Zahn, Harnack, Kennedy, 
and others, gives excellent sense. Nevertheless, we do not 
think it represents Paul’s meaning. For one thing, the words 
of me are not in the Greek, as we should have expected them 
to be if the meaning were for all your remembrance of me. 
Again, the word translated remembrance is of frequent occur- 
rence in the opening sentences of the Pauline letters in the 
sense of ‘mention in prayer.’ It is so used in Rom. 1:49, 
Ephiris16, x ‘Thess. 1'72)2s\Timina 93,, Philema sane 
each case it is closely associated with thanksgiving. It would 
be contrary to all analogy to give the word a different meaning 
in the present passage. Indeed, the word seems to have come 
to be used as a technical term in this sense long before the 
days of Paul. For an early example see Milligan, Selections, 
p. 9. Moreover, one of the uses of the preposition translated 
for (even with the case by which it is here followed) is to 
mark a point of time in the sense of ‘ at ’ or ‘ on’ (see Moulton 
and Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 234). So we take Paul’s meaning 
here to be, ‘I thank my God on every mention of you in my 
prayers.” ‘Every time, he says, “I mention you in my 
prayers I give thanks to my God.’ 

The opening words of ver. 4, always in all my prayers for 
you all (that is the order in which they come in the Greek), 
should, we think, be taken closely with ver. 3 ; they show how 
comprehensive is the statement made in the latter verse. 
Always—there are no periods during which he desists; in 
all my prayers—no single prayer of his fails to include them 
in its embrace ; for you all—not one of his readers is outside 

Io 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 34 


the circle of his interest. The R.V. rendering, ‘in every sup- 
plication of mine,’ is more literal than in all my prayers, 
inasmuch as the noun used by Paul is not the word meaning 
prayer in general, but the word denoting prayer in one of 
its aspects—prayer as entreaty or supplication. 

There follows in the Greek a participial clause, ‘ making 
my supplication with a sense of joy,’ which in our rendering 
appears as an independent clause, I pray with a sense of joy. 
Paul supplicates with joy! Even his entreaties are suffused 
with joy! He has not to force himself to pray for the Philip- 
pians ; their attitude to him makes the task easy and grateful. 
‘ Those who grieve their faithful ministers,’ says Trapp in his 
comment on this verse, ‘and quench the spirit in them, do 
it to their own singular disadvantage.’ 

The clause for what you have contributed to the gospel is 
dependent on with a sense of joy. Lightfoot and others con- 
nect it with I thank my God in ver. 3, taking ver. 4 as a paren- 
thesis. The first-mentioned connexion, however, is more 
natural, though of course it is true that ver. 5, just because it 
states the ground of the joy, at the same time gives the reason 
for the thanksgiving which springs out of it. 

A more literal rendering than for what you have contributed 
to the gospel would be ‘on the ground of your fellowship 
(koinonta) for the gospel.’ ‘Koindnia’ is the common word 
in the New Testament for fellowship ; but it is used several 
times for gifts or contributions of money. See Rom. 15: 26, 
2 Cor.8:4; 9:13, Heb. 13:16. The same preposition that 
is here rendered to (in the phrase to the gospel) follows the 
word koinonza also in Rom. 15: 26 and 2 Cor. 9: 13, and is of 
frequent occurrence in the papyri in connexion with contribu- 
tions and payments in such phrases as ‘ for the rent.’ All this 
goes to show that the rendering for what you have contributed 
to the gospel is fully justified. The money gifts of the Philip- 
pians are in Paul’s thoughts. At the same time we hesitate to 
think that this exhausts the meaning of his words. The word 
koinonia embraces also the sympathy of which the gifts were 
the outward expression, and all the various ministrations by 
means of which the Philippians in fellowship with the Apostle 

II 


THE EPISTLEVOR PAULL OSTAENPHILIPEI ARS 


had helped to spread the good news. The sending of the gifts 
was but one aspect of their fellowship—an aspect which 
showed that, to quote Trapp again, ‘ the communion of saints 
was with them a point of practice as well as an article of belief.’ 

This fellowship had existed from the very first day, that is, 
from the very beginning of their acquaintance with Paul and 
his gospel. Gifts had come to the Apostle from the Philippians 
immediately after his first departure from their midst. Even 
while he was in Thessalonica, which place he must have reached 
soon after leaving Philippi, more than one gift came to him 
from them (4: 16) ; and we learn from 2 Cor. 11: 9 that help 
came from the same quarter when he reached Corinth, for ‘ the 
brothers who came from Macedonia’ must have come from 
Philippi, since we know that in those early days no other 
Church had any ‘ financial dealings ’ with him (4: 15). 

And the sympathy had continued down to this moment. 
Not long before the writing of the present letter a gift had 
come, borne by Epaphroditus, bearing evidence of the abiding 
goodwill of the Philippians (4 : 18). 

In vers. 6 and 7 the Apostle gives expression to his feeling 
of confidence in their future progress. Of this, he says, I am 
confident that he who has begun the good work in you will go 
on completing it. The joy of his supplications is due in part 
to his confidence that his supplications will not be in vain. 
It was the God to whom his entreaties on their behalf were 
addressed that had begun in them the good work, and surely 
He would not leave it unfinished. ‘Not even a man,’ says 
Bengel, ‘ begins anything without design.’ God must have 
had a purpose in view when He began the work, and that 
purpose will not be abandoned. 

The word ‘ begin’ in classical Greek often bears a ritual 
sense ‘to begin the offering’; so also the word ‘ complete’ 
sometimes means ‘to discharge a religious service,’ or ‘to 
perform a sacrifice,’ a meaning found in the papyri as well. © 
Both verbs, however, are frequent in the papyri with the 
ordinary meanings of ‘ begin’ and ‘complete.’ See Moulton 
and Milligan, Vocabulary, pp. 211, 247, 248. Whether the 
words are intended to bear a sacrificial sense in the present 

I2 





CHAPTER I, VERSES 37 


passage is very doubtful. To assume a ritual significance 
would not effect any evident enrichment of the meaning. 
Yet when we find the same two verbs coupled together again 
in Gal. 3 : 3 and (virtually) in 2 Cor. 8: 6, we begin to wonder 
whether the fact that they were both used in a technical sense 
in the same circle of ideas explains this triple conjunction of 
them in the writings of Paul. Would the sacrificial meaning 
if present in our passage help to deepen the readers’ sense of 
the dignity of the divine work ? Perhaps it would. 

And what is the good work of which the Apostle speaks ? 
Is it the inward operation of God’s grace in the hearts of the 
Philippians ? Or is it their co-operation with the Apostle in 
the furthering of the gospel ? The words in you do not decide 
the question, for the words so translated may mean ‘among you.’ 
The former view is, we think, the more natural, and it receives 
support from the reference to the divine grace in ver. 7. The 
outward co-operation is, of course, the outcome and expres- 
sion of the inward work of grace. Note the rendering will go 
on completing: there is a reference to the process as well as 
to the final issue. Commencement, continuance, and con- 
summation—all three are of God. 

The process is to continue until the day of Jesus Christ. 
The day of Jesus Christ is the day of his Parousia, for the 
coming of which Paul never ceased to hope. The main idea 
in the expression which Paul here uses is the temporal one. 
The preposition employed is the same as that used in the 
phrase down to this moment in ver. 5. In the corresponding 
expression in I: 10 and 2: 16 a different preposition is used, 
whereby the thought of preparation for the scrutiny of the 
great day is more unmistakably suggested. It is possible, 
however, that this thought, as well as the kindred thought of 
a consummation worthy of the great day, is not utterly absent 
from the present passage. 

It is difficult not to find in this verse ground for the inference 
that the Apostle expected the Parousia to come in the lifetime 
of his readers, for it is of they progress that he speaks. The 
thought of the progress of the Church at Philippi after the 
present generation had passed away does not seem to be in his 


13 


THE. EPISTLE OF PAULSTOSIABRVERITIPEL Ais 


mind ; nor yet the thought of the progress of his readers after 
their death. 

The long story of the erection of Cologne Cathedral has been 
used to illustrate the persistence of the work of divine grace in 
the heart of man. See the Expository Times for May 1914, 
p. 346. The first stone was laid in 1248, and the cathedral was 
completed in 1880. Though the building of it was spread over 
more than half a millennium, it was finished according to the 
original plan. 

It is only natural, adds the Apostle, for me to be thinking 
of you all in this way, for alike in my prison and as I defend 
and vindicate the gospel, I bear in mind how you all share 
with me in the grace divine. This rendering brings out exactly 
the meaning of Paul, and at the same time it does the reader 
the service of concealing the somewhat obscure and compli- 
cated character of the Apostle’s language at this point. In 
the Greek, vers. 3-7 consist of one long sentence, and ver. 7 
is closely connected with ver. 6. The opening words of ver. 7 
may be literally rendered thus: ‘ even as it is your due for me 
to be thinking of you all in this way,’ the meaning being that 
Paul’s confident expectation of his readers’ progress is in 
accordance with the fact that it is their due that he should 
be thinking thus of them all. What the Greek says in a 
somewhat periphrastic manner is more succinctly expressed 
in our translation. 

There is emphasis on the words for me. His readers would 
surely not expect anything else from him—from one who 
knows them so well, and sees at work in them (as he proceeds 
to tell them) the same grace whose operations he discerns in 
his own heart. 

The word rendered to be thinking connotes much more than 
mere thought. It signifies sympathetic interest and concern, 
expressing as it does the action of the heart as well as the 
intellect ; it is one of Paul’s favourite words, occurring more 
than twenty times in his epistles, half of the occurrences being 
in Philippians. In 4:10 Paul employs this word to denote 
the Philippians’ care for him as shown in the gift which they 
had sent to him. His concern for them has perforce to find 


14 


CHAPTERS AVERSES: 377 


expression in another way. ‘ He cannot and need not send 
them money in return, but he can cherish great and good 
hopes of their religious prospects’ (Moffatt, in the Expositor, 
VIII. xii, p. 340). Note the word all: once again he makes 
it clear that he excludes no one of them. In this way means 
in the way described in ver. 6. 

The remainder of ver. 7—for alike in my prison . . . in the 
grace divine—is a statement of the ground on which he regards 
his hopes of their progress as no more than their due. 

Several ambiguities in meaning and arrangement meet us 
in the Greek that underlies these words. 

(2) Where our translation has I bear in mind how you, it is 
possible to reverse the pronouns and render ‘ you bear me in 
mind’ or ‘you have me in your heart’ (so R.V. margin). 
The context, however, as well as the order of the Greek, is 
decidedly against the latter rendering. 

(6) It is permissible to take the words rendered alike in my 
prison and as I defend and vindicate the gospel closely with 
you all share with me in the grace divine. In that case the 
meaning* would be that Paul thought of the Philippians, in 
virtue of their sharing with him in the divine grace, as co- 
partners with him in his imprisonment, and as co-operating 
with him in his defence and vindication of the gospel. 

(c) Again, it is possible to understand the clause as I defend 
and vindicate the gospel either of Paul’s indirect service to the 
cause of the new faith through his defence of himself when 
on trial, or else of his direct service through his teaching and 
influence. Literally the Apostle’s words may be rendered, 
as in the R.V., ‘in the defence and confirmation of the gospel.’ 
In the Greek there is only one article for the two nouns, 
which shows that they are to be taken closely together. 
Lightfoot, who holds that our epistle was written early in 
Paul’s Roman imprisonment, and that consequently it cannot 
contain any reference to his trial as actually in process, takes 
these two nouns to stand respectively for ‘the negative or 
defensive side of the Apostle’s preaching, the preparatory 
process of removing obstacles and prejudices,’ and ‘the 
positive or aggressive side, the direct advancement and 


15 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


establishment of the Gospel.’ But the words are more 
naturally taken as referring to his trial. The former of the 
two nouns is the ordinary word for defence in a court of 
law, and of the latter also the technical sense has been empha- 
sized by Deissmann. Speaking of the use by Paul of this second 
term in our present passage, Deissmann says: ‘ He is indeed 
in bonds, but he is standing on his defence, and this defence 
before the court will be at the same time an evictio or con. 
victio of the Gospel’ (Bible Studies, p. 108). Moulton and 
Milligan remark that ‘ the papyri discovered since Deissmann’s 
pioneer work was published support with numerous examples 
his thesis that the word must always be read with the tech- 
nical sense in mind’ (Vocabulary, p. 108). The translation 
given in our text is, we think, correct both in rendering and 
arrangement. Whether he be in prison or standing before 
his judges, the Apostle thinks of the Philippians, and he thinks 
of them as sharing with him in the grace divine. 

I bear in mind is the true meaning of the words which in 
the R.V. are rendered ‘ I have in my heart,’ for in the present 
context, as often in the New Testament, the word which the 
Revisers render by ‘ heart’ stands for the mind. The reason 
for Paul’s confidence regarding the prospects of the Philippians 
is that he is able to think of them in a certain way (namely, 
as sharing with him in the grace divine), not that he has them 
as objects of affection in his heart; so that the homiletical 
use that is sometimes made of this verse—for example, by 
Jordan and Jowett—is wholly unjustifiable. These and 
other writers base upon this verse a homily on the thought 
that love engenders confidence—that we have faith in those 
whom we love. However true this may be in fact, it is not 
what Paul is saying here. 

In the grace divine surely represents Paul’s meaning. There 
is in the Greek no epithet with the word grace, but the reference 
must be to the divine grace, just as in Rom. 12:19 ‘the 
wrath’ is the wrath of God. Paul knows from his own 
experience what the grace of God can achieve—that is why 
he is confident regarding those who share with him in that 
grace. And once again he includes them all! 

16 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 8-11 


AFFECTIONATE YEARNING AND PRAYER FOR THE ENRICHMENT 
OF LovE (I. 8-11) 


(God is my witness that I yearn for you all with the affection of 
Christ Jesus himself!) And it is my prayer that your love 
may be more and more rich in knowledge and all manner 
of insight, enabling you to have a sense of what is vital, 


so that you may be transparent and no harm to anyone in 10 
view of the day of Christ, your life covered with that 11 


harvest of righteousness which Jesus Christ produces to 
the glory and the praise of God. 


The twofold attitude towards the Philippians which we saw 
revealing itself in the last paragraph is seen here again. The 
present passage contains a statement of the Apostle’s boundless 
affection for them, followed by a detailed statement of the 
burden of his prayer on their behalf, designed in part, as we 
think, to remind them that they have not yet reached that 
perfection which he desires them to attain. 

It is for an enrichment of their love that he prays, mindful, 
we may be sure, of the dissensions which, springing from 
poverty of love, mar their life, ike some disfiguring ailment 
that springs from poverty of blood. The Philippians were not 
without love, but their love was not sufficiently rich in certain 
qualities. 

God is my witness, says the Apostle, that I yearn for you all 
with the affection of Christ Jesus himself! In varying phrase- 
ology Paul invokes the witness of God also in Rom.1:49, 
2 Cor. 1: 23, 11: 31, Gal. 1: 20, 1 Thess. 2:5, 10. Compare 
also Rom. 9:1. In all these cases his object is to certify or 
authenticate the truth of some statement he is making. Here 
and in Rom. 1:9 it is a declaration of affectionate interest 
that is verified by means of the adjuration. As a rule, when 
the Apostle invokes the witness of God he seems to be con- 
scious of a disposition to doubt the truth of his affirmation, 
so that there is justification for the view of Zahn and others 
who find in this verse an indication of the existence among 


17 


8 


THE EPISTLE*OR“PAUL TOMTHE PHILIEEIANS 


the Philippians of a suspicion of a lack of cordiality on Paul’s 
part. 

Instead of God is my witness that, the A.V. and the R.V. 
both have ‘God is my witness how.’ Either rendering is pos- 
sible, but the former is much the more probable ; for, seeing 
that the depth of the Apostle’s yearning is set forth in the 
phrase with the affection of Christ Jesus himself, there is no 
need to call the witness of God to anything but the fact that he 
so yearns. 

What precisely is it that Paul is yearning for? Is Ellicott 
justified when he says that ‘ the longing and yearning of the 
Apostle was for something more than mere earthly reunion, it 
was for their eternal welfare and blessedness’ ? It is true, as 
we shall see presently, that it was not merely because fellow- 
ship with his readers would be agreeable to him that he yearned 
for them ; but at the same time the meaning of the clause with 
which we are now dealing is that Paul was longing to be with 
them. The same verb, with the same construction, is used 
in 2:26 of Epaphroditus, and there the evident meaning is 
that Epaphroditus is longing to be back with his friends at 
Philippi. The use of the cognate adjective in 4: 1 describing 
the readers as greatly longed-for points in the same direction. 
Paul yearns for them all: he is still anxious that no one should 
imagine himself to be excluded. 

He yearns for them with the affection of Christ Jesus him- 
self! The affection with which he longs for them is something 
more than his own unaided affection, for that has been ennobled 
and sanctified by his union with Christ. The form of expression 
used points to the consciousness of a union with him of the 
closest kind. Lightfoot paraphrases the words of Paul thus: 
“** Did I speak of having you in my own heart? I should 
rather have said that in the heart of Christ Jesus I long for 
you,’ ’ and adds: ‘A powerful metaphor describing perfect 
union. The believer has no yearnings apart from his Lord ; 
his pulse beats with the pulse of Christ ; his heart throbs with 
the heart of Christ.” The striking way in which Paul speaks 
of his longing for the Philippians shows that he means something 
more than a mere desire to enjoy their fellowship ; his yearn- 

18 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 8-11 


ing is a yearning to be with them, it is true, but he longs to be 
with them to help, to guide, to bless. 

The rendering of the A.V.—‘ in the bowels of Jesus Christ ’"— 
is as inexact as it is inelegant. It goes back to Wyclif, whose 
translation of this verse (A.D. 1382) is the earliest passage 
quoted in the Oxford New English Dictionary showing the 
use of the word ‘ bowels’ in this metaphorical sense. The 
Greek word used by Paul denoted the nobler viscera, the 
heart, lungs, liver, and not the lower viscera, the intestines or 
bowels. Wyclif’s rendering would come from the Vulgate, in 
visceribus Iesu Christi, for the Latin viscera can mean the 
bowels or intestines as well as the nobler vitals. For this 
metaphorical use Hebrew selected the less noble parts, and in 
the LXX the Greek word found in our passage (which stands 
for the nobler organs) is used to render Hebrew words which 
ordinarily signify the lower organs when these are used meta- 
phoricaliy for the feelings. 

Paul now proceeds to give the substance of his supplica- 
tions on behalf of the Philippians of which he has already 
spoken in ver. 4. Whatever forms his entreaties assumed, 
they were all in essence petitions for the enrichment of their 
love. And it is my prayer, he says, that your love may be 
more and more rich in knowledge and all manner of insight. 
He assumes that there is love in their hearts; unless the 
divine love had found some response in them, kindling a love 
akin to itself, he could not have addressed them as ‘ saints in 
Christ Jesus,’ or regarded them as members of the new 
ecclesia; nor could he have spoken of the ‘good work’ 
which God had already begun in them. 

Kennedy holds that your love in the present clause ‘ can 
scarcely mean anything else than your love towards one 
another.’ Lightfoot and Ellicott, on the other hand, refuse to 
restrict the love spoken of here in any such way ; and in this 
refusal the majority of expositors rightly concur. ‘Love 
absolutely,’ is Lightfoot’s comment, ‘ the inward state of the 
soul.’ At the same time it is possible—the context indeed 
makes it very probable—that it was something reprehensible 
in the behaviour of the Philippians towards each other, and 


19 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


it may be towards the surrounding pagan population as well, 
that led the Apostle to conclude that their love was in need of 
enrichment; but this is not the same thing as to say that your 
iove in this clause should be restricted to their love towards 
one another. 

The words may be more and more rich imply that their love 
was not wholly deficient in those qualities in which the 
Apostle desires it to be enriched. Paul is not wanting in ap- 
preciation of their present attainment, but he is not satisfied 
with it. The love that burns in his own heart sets the stan- 
dard high. ‘Ignus in apostolo nunquam dicit, Sufficit,’ says 
Bengel. Paul’s prayer is not that some fresh elements should 
be introduced into their love. Knowledge and insight are es- 
sential elements in Christian love, and in these qualities the 
love of the Philippians was deficient. 

The word here used by Paul for knowledge invariably 
stands in the New Testament for ethical or spiritual know- 
ledge. It is not the simple word for knowledge (gnosis), but 
a compound (epignosis). In 3 : 8 it is the simple gnosis that 
is used. Does epignosis in the present passage mean more 
than gnosis would have meant? When a distinction is drawn 
between the two words, epignosis is taken to mean full, 
thorough, clear, or accurate knowledge. So the word is often 
interpreted here; and the question arises whether our trans- 
lation is justified in using the simple knowledge. In 1 Cor. 
13 : 12 Paul, using the cognate verbs, suddenly changes from 
the simple to the compound. ‘It is difficult to believe,’ re- 
mark Robertson and Plummer in their note on that passage, 
‘that here the compound is not meant to indicate more com- 
plete knowledge than the simple verb; but,’ they add, ‘it does 
not follow from this that the compound always does so.’ 
Still less is it a necessary corollary from the Corinthian pas- 
sage that the compound oun always indicates fuller know- 
ledge than the simple noun. The use of the compound verb 
in the papyri leads Moulton and Milligan (Vocubalary, p. 236) 
to endorse the conclusion reached by Armitage Robinson in 
his Ephesians (pp. 248 ff.) that it does not denote more 
complete or perfect knowledge. They are also very doubtful 

20 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 8-11 


whether the compound noun signifies fuller or more accurate 
knowledge. The probability is that the simple knowledge 
states all that the noun efignosis would convey to Paul’s 
readers. In all the ‘ prison letters ’ the Apostle uses the word 
epignosts when telling his readers of his prayers on their 
behalf. See Eph. 1:17, Col. 1:9, 10, Philem. 6. The word 
occurs also in Eph. 4: 13 and Col. 2: 2, 3: ro. 

This is the solitary New Testament occurrence of the word 
translated insight. The word was first used of bodily sense 
perception, and then by a natural development came to be 
used of spiritual perception. The distinction commonly 
drawn between knowledge and insight in the present passage 
is that the former signifies acquaintance with general prin- 
ciples, whereas the latter signifies a sense of what is right in 
concrete situations ; and this would seem to be the natural 
distinction to draw. Words from the same root as the word 
knowledge are abundant in Plato, Aristotle, and other writers 
for pure knowledge, acquaintance with principles, while the 
word insight, having originally meant sense perception, comes 
easily to be used of the tact or moral instinct which perceives 
the right course of action to be pursued in a given situation. 
Insight, as Lightfoot puts it, ‘is concerned with practical 
applications.’ 

Ail manner of insight means insight for all kinds of situa- 
tions as they may arise. This rendering is better than ‘all 
discernment ’ (R.V.), which might be understood to mean full 
power of discernment. The adjective used with the word 
insight here is the ordinary word all; it is, however, as 
Ellicott says, ‘not intensive, but, as apparently always in 
St. Paul’s Epistles, extensive, every form of.’ Paul prays that 
the love of the Philippians may not only be rich in its grasp of 
the great fundamental principles of the spiritual life, but also 
richly endowed with that spiritual insight which would enable 
them instinctively to size up all manner of concrete situations 
as they arose. ‘The fundamental choice, arrived at in 
believing, has to be reiterated continually, in a just applica- 
tion of it to a world of varying and sometimes perplexing 
cases ’ (Rainy, Expositor’s Bible, p. 37). 

2I 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


10. The clause enabling you to have a sense of what is vital sets 
forth the purpose that would be achieved by the enrichment of 
their love in knowledge and insight. Two verbs are employed 
in this clause, one of them being a participle, which is repre- 
sented in our translation by the words what is vital. Now, 
each of these two verbs has two meanings. The first means 
either ‘to prove’ or ‘to approve,’ and both of these mean- 
ings are common in Paul and in the papyri. The second verb 
means either ‘to differ’ or ‘to excel’; and each of these 
meanings, again, is found in the papyri. In the New Testa- 
ment ‘to excel’ is the prevalent meaning. The same two 
verbs are found in Rom. 2: 18 in a similar construction. In 
both passages—Rom. 2: 18 and our present clause—two render- 
ings are possible: (a) ‘to prove the things that differ’ (so 
R.V. margin in both places), and (0) ‘to approve the things 
that are excellent’ (so R.V. text in both places). Among 
those who adopt the former of these meanings there is no 
agreement with respect to the interpretation of the phrase 
‘the things that differ.” Some understand Paul to be speak- 
ing of proving, or distinguishing between, things that are good 
and things that are bad, whereas others take him to be réfer- 
ring to things that are good and things that are better. The 
latter would seem to be the more commonly adopted of these 
two views. It is the view adopted by Sanday and Headlam 
in their note on Rom. 2:18. Bengel, in his comment on our 
present passage, in which occur his oft-quoted words non modo 
prae malis bona, sed in bonts optima, combines the two views. 
Lightfoot thinks Paul has in mind things that are good and 
things that are better inasmuch as ‘ it requires no keen moral 
sense to discriminate between’ things that are opposed as 
good and bad, to which Kennedy replies by asking, ‘ But 
was not this precisely the great difficulty for heathen- 
Christians ? ’ 

Between the two renderings (a) and (6), each of which is 
based upon normal meanings of the two verbs as they are used 
in the papyni, scholars are divided. If we regard ‘ to prove 
the things that differ’ as expressing the precise meaning of 
Paul’s words, we must of course at the same time believe that 

22 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 8-11 


the other meaning—‘ to approve the things that are excellent ’ 
—is implied; for to distinguish between things that differ 
would not avail anything unless it led to approval of the things 
found to be most worthy of approval. 

To these two renderings Ellicott adds a third, namely, ‘ to 
prove, bring to the test, things that are excellent,’ and this is 
the rendering in favour of which he decides. The words 
would thus mean ‘to discover, by testing, the value of the 
things that are excellent,’ or ‘ to arrive at a valuation of that 
which excels.’ It will be seen that the rendering in our trans- 
lation—to have a sense of what is vital—comes very near to 
this. It differs from it in having what is vital instead of ‘ things 
that are excellent.’ The former is fully justified by the 
specific use of our participle in one of the papyri in the sense 
of ‘essential.’ Moulton and Milligan (Vocabulary, p. 157) 
remark that the use in the papyrus ‘ may be taken as sup- 
porting Moffatt’s translation ’ in Rom. 2: 18 and our present 
passage. The remainder of the verse shows that the Apostle 
takes for granted that his readers will order their lives in a 
manner befitting their sense of what is vital. It would appear 
that the dissensions at Philippi were due to the lack of a proper 
sense of what was vital on the part of some members of the 
Church. 9 

The outcome of their having a sense of what is vital is 
described in the clause so that you may be transparent and no 
harm to anyone in view of the day of Christ. The adjective 
rendered transparent occurs elsewhere in the New Testament 
only in 2 Pet. 3 : 1, but the cognate noun is found in r Cor. 5: 8, 
2 Cor. 1:12, 2:17. The word means unmixed, unalloyed, 
pure. In our passage the A.V. and the R.V. both have 
‘sincere,’ a word which when the A.V. was made was used 
in the sense of ‘ unadulterated.’ All was not pure gold at 
Philippi. The lack of a sense of what was vital had caused 
the lives of some members of the Christian community to 
become tainted. It is possible that the adjective transparent 
refers especially to the scrutiny of God: the Philippians were 
not transparent in His sight! Maurice Jones suggests that 
the meaning in our passage may be ‘ uncontaminated by the 


23 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


pagan atmosphere in which the Philippians are compelled to 
live.’ The suggestion is by no means improbable, for it 
may be that the trouble at Philippi was due to the inability 
of some members of the Chnstian community to distinguish 
between what was vital and what was not vital in that region 
in which their lives came into contact with the heathen life 
around them. Paul may here be warning his readers not to 
allow themselves to be contaminated by the evil things in 
pagan life, just as in 4: 8, 9 he may be commending what is 
noble in pagan life. 

No harm to anyone represents a single word in the Greek, 
an adjective. Three times only does it occur in the New 
Testament—in Acts 24:16, 1 Cor. 10: 32, and the present 
passage. It may mean either (1) not stumbling (as in Acts 
24:16), or (2) not causing to stumble (as in 1 Cor. 10: 32). 
Which of these meanings does it bear in our passage ? Authori- 
ties are not agreed, as either meaning gives good sense, and 
there 1s nothing to turn the scale definitely in favour of one 
or the other. Lightfoot adopts the former—the intransitive— 
sense, on the ground that ‘ it is a question solely of the fitness 
of the Philippians to appear before the tribunal of Christ, 
and any reference to their influence on others would be out 
of place.’ But we have only to read the description of the 
judgment scene in Matt. 25 : 31-46 to see how vital in the 
eyes of the early Christians as a preparation for the judgment 
was one’s behaviour towards others. To be harmful to others 
would bespeak a low spiritual state and gross unfitness to 
stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. 

The transitive meaning ‘ not causing harm to anyone’ is, 
to say the least, quite as probable in the present passage as the 
intransitive. Perhaps 2 Cor. 6:3 may be said to give it 
some support, for there the Apostle employs a cognate noun 
when he says ‘I put no obstacle in the path of any.’ Moulton 
and Milligan, it is true, while they give instances of the meaning 
‘ free from hurt ’ and the metaphorical sense ‘ blameless,’ give 
no example of the exact meaning ‘ not causing harm.’ Still, 
here that meaning suits the context well and is, we think, the 
meaning intended by the Apostle. 


24 


sa 


aS Sa 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 8-11 


Paul does not here say ‘until’ the day of Christ, as he 
does in ver. 6, but in view of or ‘against’ that day. The 
ideas of preparation for the scrutiny of the great day and 
ability to stand its test are suggested by the preposition 
used here. If the Philippians have a sense of what is vital, 
enabling them instinctively to test each suggested course 
of action as it presents itself, they need not fear to be them- 
selves tested of God. The great day was never long absent 
from the thoughts of Paul. 


A literal rendering of the opening words of ver. 11 would 11 


be ‘filled with the fruit of righteousness,’ but as the fruit 
stands for the outward manifestation of their inward life, 
our translation—your life covered with that harvest of righteous- 
ness—expresses the meaning with accuracy. Harvest brings 
out well the force of the collective singular ‘ fruit.” What is 
this harvest of righteousness ? Some take it to mean the 
harvest that consists of righteousness. But it is more con- 
sonant with Paul’s habitual way of thinking and speaking 
to regard righteousness not as the outward fruit, but rather 
as the inward state out of which the fruit proceeds. The 
very phrase ‘ fruit of righteousness ’ is found in the LX X (see 
Prov. 11: 30 and 13:2; Amos 6:12), but we cannot gain 
from a study of its use in the LXX any certain light on its 
exact significance in our passage. It probably refers to the 
graces and actions which are the inevitable outcome of an 
inward state of harmony with God. We are reminded of the 
description of Tabitha in Acts 9: 36—‘a woman whose life 
was full of good actions and of charitable practices.’ 
_ The present clause does not (as Moule, for example, seems 
to think) primarily describe the Philippians as Paul desires 
them to appear in the day of Christ. Grammatically the 
words are parallel with transparent and no harm to anyone, 
and as the Philippians are to be transparent and no harm to 
anyone im view of the day of Christ, it follows that their life is 
to be covered with the harvest of righteousness also in view of 
that day. The harvest is to reveal itself in their dealings 
with one another and with their neighbours in Philippi. 

In the clause which Jesus Christ produces the relative refers 


25 


12 
13 


14 


THE EPISTLECOPAEAUL TOVEREREALLIPE TAS 


to harvest, not to ghteousness. The righteousness, it is true, 
is produced by him ; but here it is the harvest springing from 
righteousness that is spoken of as his handiwork. The graces 
which emanate from the inward state are produced by him no 
less than the inward state itself. No amount of exertion 
apart from him can cause the harvest to appear. ‘ Just as 
a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, without remaining on 
the vine, neither can you, unless you remain in me’ (John 
15: 4). 

The words to the glory and the praise of God should not be 
taken closely with the words which Jesus Christ produces. 
They go with the words your life covered with that harvest 
of righteousness. It is the life thus adorned that Paul thinks 
of as conducing to the glory and the praise of God. God’s 
glory is the manifestation of His character; His praise is 
the recognition of His character by men. How can the 
character of God be truly revealed save in His handiwork in 
man? The love for whose enrichment the Apostle prays is 
kindled by His love; the enrichment also comes from Him 
—else why should Paul pray for it ? And the outward harvest 
is produced by Jesus Christ. All is of God in Christ, and 
all redounds to His glory. ‘As you bear rich fruit and prove 
yourselves my disciples, my Father is glorified’ (John 15: 8). 
And the harvest conduces to His praise as well as to His 
glory. ‘So your light is to shine before men, that they may 
see the good you do and glorify your Father in heaven ’ (Matt. 
5:16). The glory and the praise of God is with Paul the 
ultimate end of all things. Compare 2: II. 


THE INFLUENCE OF PAUL’S IMPRISONMENT (I. 12-14) 

I would have you understand, my brothers, that my affairs 
have really tended to advance the gospel; throughout 
the whole of the praetorian guard and everywhere else it 
is recognized that I am imprisoned on account of my 
connexion with Christ, and my imprisonment has given 
the majority of the brotherhood greater confidence in 
the Lord to venture on speaking the word of God without 
being afraid. 

26 


CHAPTER AT VERSES 12-14 


Paul here suddenly turns to speak of his own affairs. It 
is not improbable that he is now answering inquiries which 
have been addressed to him by the Philippians. How would 
his arrest and imprisonment in Ephesus affect the prospects 
of the new faith? There would also be concern for the 
Apostle himself. The anxiety of the Philippians is mirrored 
in Paul’s evident desire to reassure them. Compare Eph. 
Biri and Colt 24° 

The phrase I would have you understand is one form of a 12 
common epistolary formula. This exact form is not found 
elsewhere in the New Testament, but is of frequent occurrence 
in the papyri. A less emphatic form is also common in the 
papyri, in which a verb expressing the mere fact of desire or 
volition is used, whereas in our present passage the verb 
employed expresses volition as guided by purpose (see Hort 
on Jas. 1:18 and 4:4). The weaker verb is used in a slightly 
different form of the formula in 1 Cor. 11:3 and Col. 2:1, 
and also in yet another form which Paul uses more often than 
any other, namely, ‘I do not wish you to be ignorant’ 
Civormed eel eet to 25, ere COrmalO. Lalor Dn COL 48, 
1 Thess. 4:13). In each of these six last-mentioned passages 
he addresses his readers as “ brothers,’ as he does in our present 
passage. 

Six times in our epistle the Philippians are addressed as 
‘brothers.’ In the papyri the term is used of members of the 
same religious community, and in one papyrus ‘the same 
designation is applied to the “‘ fellows ”’ of a religious corpora- 
tion established in the Serapeum of Memphis’ (Moulton and 
Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 9). ‘ Brother’ is also in the papyri 
a frequent title of epistolary address. In ver. 14 Paul speaks 
of the Ephesian Christians as brothers, or a brotherhood. 

The phrase here rendered my affairs is found also in 
Eph. 6: 21 and Col. 4: 7 in the same sense. The affairs will 
be the imprisonment spoken of in the next verse and the 
attendant circumstances. ‘ My sufferings and restraints’ is 
* Lightfoot’s paraphrase. 

The word really would seem to imply two things: (a) that 
the Philippians had expressed a fear that the contrary would 

27 


THE EPISTLE..OF PAUL TO THERPAILIPETANS 


have been the case, and (b) that such fear was natural and 
reasonable. Paul assures them that so far from having had 
the effect apprehended by them, his affairs had actually 
tended to advance the gospel. ‘ Rumours to the contrary,’ 
says Bengel, ‘may have circulated in the Churches’; and 
Calvin suggests that Paul’s enemies may have been making 
capital out of his imprisonment. Trapp likens the troubles of 
Luther, which also tended to advance the gospel. ‘ For what- 
soever the pope and the emperor attempted against the gospel, 
Christ turned it all to the furtherance of the gospel. The 
pope’s bull, the emperor’s thunderbolt, amazed not men, but 
animated them to embrace the truth; weakened them not, 
but wakened them rather.’ 

13 In this and the next verse Paul shows how the gospel has 
been advanced. « The results of his imprisonment are portrayed 
in order to prove that it has helped the gospel. He speaks of 
the influence of his imprisonment in two spheres: (a) outside 
the Christian community (ver. 13), and (>) within the Christian 
community (ver. 14). 

The influence exerted outside the Christian community 
comes first. The clause that in our translation opens ver. 13 
is rendered quite literally in the margin of the R.V. ‘in the 
whole Praetorium,’ while the text of the R.V. interprets it— 
as does our translation—to mean ‘throughout the whole 
praetorian guard.’ The A.V. renders ‘in all the palace,’ and 
in its margin explains that the palace is ‘ Caesar’s court.’ 
What does Paul mean by the Praetorium? This is the only 
occurrence of the word in his epistles. It is used in Matt. 
27:27, Mark 15: 16, John 18: 28, 33; 19:9, of the residence 
of the Roman procurator in Jerusalem, and in Acts 23 : 35 we 
are told that Felix the procurator gave orders that Paul ‘ was 
to be kept in the Praetorium of Herod,’ that is, in the palace- 
fortress in Caesarea built by Herod the Great and used as the 
residence of the procurator. 

The Latin word praetorium (of which the Greek word is but 
a transliteration) originally meant the tent of the praetor. 
The praetor was the leader or general of a Roman army, so 
that the Praetorium would be the headquarters of the camp. 

28 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 12-14 


By and by the word came to be used for a council of war from 
the fact that the council was held in the praetor’s tent. Bya 
natural development the word came to signify the residence 
of the governor of a province; this is the meaning it bears in 
the passages from the Gospels and Acts to which reference 
has just been made. In late Latin it stands for any palace or 
stately building. 

On the assumption that the epistle was written from Rome 
it is not impossible that the A.V. is right in taking it in the 
present passage of the Emperor’s palace, which was situated 
on the Palatine Hill. If the word was used in Paul’s time— 
we have evidence that it was used not long afterwards—in the 
general sense of palace, it is not inconceivable that he should 
have used it of the palace par excellence in Rome. Perhaps 
it would be easy for a provincial to do this, for the reason that 
the word was used of the official residence of the governor of 
a province, and of the residence of the Emperor when away 
from Rome. Still, there is more to be said against this inter- 
pretation than can be said in its favour. There does not seem 
to be even a solitary example of the application of the term to 
the Imperial residence in Rome ; and, moreover, as Lightfoot 
has pointed out (p. 100), such an application would in itself 
be highly improbable. 

Two other explanations which regard the word as denoting 
a place rather than persons are suggested by expositors who 
maintain the Roman origin of our epistle. One of these is that 
the reference is to the large permanent camp constructed by 
Tiberius for the praetorian guards outside the eastern walls 
of the city near the Porta Viminalis. This camp, however, 
was not known as the Praetorium. The other explanation is 
that the word denotes the praetorian barracks attached to the 
Imperial palace, where a small detachment of the praetorian 
guards was wont to be stationed. But there is no authority 
for the use of the term to denote these barracks, and in any 
case the space was too limited to warrant the use of the phrase 
‘in the whole Praetorium.’ 

But if no certain evidence exists of the use of the term in 
the aforementioned senses, there is abundant evidence that 


29 


THE EPISTLE, OFVPAUL TOCRHEVPCAILIPPIANS 


it was employed of the praetorian guards. This is the meaning 
given to the word in our passage by most modern scholars, 
and it is, we think, the right meaning, whether the letter was 
written at Ephesus or at Rome. This is the view for which 
Lightfoot argues in his famous note (Philippians, pp. 99-104). 
He demonstrates that this was the common meaning of the 
term, adducing evidence not only from inscriptions, but also 
from the pages of Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, and Josephus. 

The praetorian guards were organized by Augustus in 2 B.C. 
They were the Imperial life-guards. The idea was suggested 
by, and the name derived from, the cohors praetoria, the body- 
guard of a praetor of a Roman army. At first the praetorian 
guards consisted of nine or ten thousand picked men, but the 
number was increased by Vitellius to sixteen thousand. They 
were reorganized by Septimius Severus, and finally disbanded 
by Constantine the Great in 312 after an existence of just over 
three hundred years. 

It has been pointed out in the Introduction that the reference 
to the Praetorium suits Ephesus quite as well asit suits Rome. 
The Proconsul of Asia would have a residence in Ephesus, 
and to that residence the Apostle may be referring. But if 
we take the word of the praetorian guards, even so it suits 
Ephesus, for it was no uncommon thing for detachments of 
praetoriant to be sent to the provincial capitals ; and we 
possess inscriptional evidence of the presence of members of 
the guards at Ephesus. Whether Paul is referring to the 
guards or to the palace remains an open question. 

The literal meaning of the words rendered and everywhere 
else is“.and to all the rest ’ (soR.V.). Exactly the same phrase 
occurs in 2 Cor. 13: 2, and there it evidently refers to persons, 
not places. The A.V. having taken the word ‘ Praetorium ’ 
of the Imperial Palace is obliged to render the present clause 
“and in all other places,’ giving however in the margin 
the personal interpretation ‘to all others.’ Chrysostom, 
Theodoret, and Calvin give to the words a local meaning, but 
this is contrary to the usage of the New Testament elsewhere ; 
and Lightfoot declares of the translation of the text of the 
A.V. that it ‘will not stand.’ In view of the rendering of 


30 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 12-14 


the word Praetorium in our translation, the rendering of the 
present clause is probably a paraphrase of the personal inter- 
pretation. In any case, the expression must not, of course, 
be taken too literally. It is, as Lightfoot says, ‘a com- 
prehensive expression, which must not be rigorously inter- 
preted.’ ; 

The exact meaning of the words rendered it is recognized 
that I am imprisoned on account of my connexion with Christ 
is uncertain. It will help us to decide upon the probable mean- 
ing if we note that it is possible to render the words literally 
in three different ways: (a) ‘my bonds-in-Christ have become 
manifest ’ (so, virtually, the A.V.); (0) ‘my bonds have be- 
come manifest-in-Christ ’ (so, virtually, the R.V.) ; and (c) ‘in 
Christ my bonds have become manifest.’ The variation, it will 
be seen, is due to the fact that ‘in Christ’ may be taken 
closely either with ‘my bonds’ or with ‘ manifest,’ or be 
regarded as qualifying the whole statement ‘my bonds have 
become manifest.’ Our translation implies the second of 
these as the correct literal rendering. The first of the three— 
that of the A.V.—may safely be set aside, inasmuch as it is 
put out of court by the order of the Greek. There remain, 
then, the other two—(bd) and (c). Does Paul speak of his bonds 
as having become ‘ manifest-in-Christ ’? Or does he say that 
“in Christ his bonds have become manifest ’? Maurice Jones 
argues strongly against the former and for the latter. He 
gives three reasons for rejecting the former. He contends, 
in the first place, that the grammar of the Greek is ‘ decidedly 
opposed to it.’ There is nothing, however, in the Greek to 
prevent us from taking ‘in Christ’ closely with “ manifest ’ ; 
and it is significant that both Lightfoot and Ellicott so con- 
strue the words. Jones’s second reason is that it is doubtful 
whether the profession of Christianity was at this time a 
criminal offence. But surely this is not of necessity involved 
in the interpretation which Jones is combating. In the 
third place, Jones insists that the phrase ‘in Christ’ should 
here be given the meaning which it always bears in Paul’s 
epistles. But the significance of the phrase need not be 
precisely identical in every occurrence, and its force in the 


31 


THE EPISTLE:\OF, PAUL TO, THE. PHILIPPIANS 


translation deprecated by Jones cannot be said to be after all 
very far removed from its force in the interpretation which 
he advocates. And if we connect ‘in Christ’ with the verb, 
as Jones would have us do, does not that leave the word ‘ mani- 
fesc’ too undefined ? We feel that something is required to 
complete the predicate. As Jones interprets the words 
they cannot really mean more than that Christ has made 
Paul’s imprisonment known. Surely that is not what Paul 
means. How could the mere knowledge that he was in 
bonds help the gospel? ‘In Christ’ must be taken, as it 
seems to us, closely with ‘ manifest,’ and in this respect the 
rendering of our translation is accurate. Paul’s imprisonment 
could advance the gospel only when it had come to be regarded 
in a particular way. 

Nevertheless, though we regard our translation as based 
on the correct syntactical arrangement of Paul’s words, we 
are not so sure that it exactly expresses the Apostle’s meaning. 
What it makes Paul say is that the reason for his imprison- 
ment has become known. But does he not mean rather that 
the spirit in which he is bearing his imprisonment has become 
a matter of common knowledge? When he says that his 
bonds have become ‘ manifest in Christ,’ he means, as Ellicott 
paraphrases, that they are ‘ manifestly borne in fellowship 
with him, and in his service.’ He does not mean that men 
have come to see that his imprisonment is due to his con- 
nexion with Christ ; he means rather that men have become 
cognizant of the fact that he is bearing it ‘in Christ.’ In this 
interpretation the great phrase ‘in Christ ’ bears the meaning 
for which Jones contends. The cause of the gospel is helped 
because men mark the Christian spirit in which the Apostle 
endures his imprisonment. . And how consistently conformable 
with the spirit of Christ must his demeanour have been to 
achieve the result which he claims for it! Moule appositely 
compares the noble spirit manifested by Bishop Ridley (see 
Philippian Studies, pp. 48-50). 

The transformation of the imprisonment into an oppor- 
tunity reminds us of John Wesley’s letter to his trusty helper, 
John Nelson, then imprisoned in York Castle. He writes: 


32 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 12-14 


‘Well, my brother, is the God whom you serve able to deliver 
you ; and do you still find Him faithful to His word? Is His 
grace still sufficient for you? I doubt it not. He will not 
suffer you to be weary or faint in your mind. But He had P 
work for you to do that you knew not of, and thus His counsel 
was to be fulfilled. O lose no time! Who knows how many 
souls God may by this means deliver into your hands? Shall 
not all these things be for the furtherance of the gospel ? ’ 
(see Letters of John Wesley, edited by George Eayrs, p. 147). 

Paul now proceeds to speak of the influence of his imprison- 14 ~ 
ment upon the Christian community: and my imprisonment 
has given the majority of the brotherhood greater confidence 
in the Lord to venture on speaking the word of God without 
being afraid. The major part of the believers at Ephesus were 
inspired with greater confidence, and stimulated to greater 
activity in the proclamation of the word of God. It is implied 
that a minority remained uninfluenced. It is worthy of note 
that Paul is speaking, not of the officials or ministers of the 
~-Church, but of the whole membership. Clearly, then, the 
proclamation of the word was looked upon as the duty and 
prerogative of each and all. This conception of the Church’s 
responsibility is one which we are ever prone to overlook. 
‘I cannot do much more here,’ writes Dr. Forsyth, ‘ than 
place myself on the side of the sound principle that it is 
the Church that is the great missionary to Humanity, and not\~ 
apostles, prophets, and agents here and there. Ifa preacher 
is to act on the world he must, as a rule, do it through his 
Church’ (Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 77). 

Greater confidence, be it noticed, suggesting that they had 
been doing already what they now do more worthily. Already 
they were venturing to speak the word of God. 

What was it that made the Apostle’s imprisonment a 
stimulus to the Christian community ? Two answers have 
been given to this question. According to some it was the 
favourable view of his case to which the authorities seemed to 
be inclining. This is the view favoured by Kennedy. The 
second, and the more commonly accepted, view is that his 
sop pauent gave Paul the opportunity of manifesting his 


33 


ro ? 


THE ‘EPISTLE, OF APAUL TOM] HEV EHILIPPIANS 


own confidence and intrepidity, and that this reacted upon 
those who observed his demeanour. The latter, we think, is 
the right view to take. At any rate, it makes the heightened 
boldness displayed by the community a nobler thing than 
does the other view; and it is more consonant with the 
language of Paul which speaks of his imprisonment—and not 
of any view taken of it—as that which gives them greater 
confidence. Moreover, Paul speaks of their venturing to 
proclaim the word of God, as if it involved a risk, and the 
language is scarcely compatible with the view that their 
greater activity was inspired by the prospect of a favourable 
verdict. The impression produced by the epistle as a whole 
is that the Apostle hardly dared to hope for such a verdict, 
and this too favours the view that the Ephesian Christians 
were influenced by the spirit which he manifested rather than 
by any goodwill on the part of the authorities. 

There is one consideration which seems to tell against the 
view for which we are arguing. The next paragraph of the 
epistle speaks of certain members of the community who 
preach ‘from envy and rivalry,’ intending to annoy the 
Apostle as he lies in his prison. As we shall see, it is probable 
that these are included in the majority of the brotherhood 
who are stimulated by Paul’s imprisonment. Does not this 
show that the stimulation had its source, not in the nobility 
of his spirit, which would not be hkely to affect them, but 
rather in the goodwill of the authorities? No quite satis- 
factory solution of this problem presents itself, although, after 
all, it is not inconceivable that those whose spirit is con- 
demned by Paul should be roused to greater exertion by his 
example. If he, in his circumstances, could show such con- 
fidence and courage, why should not they, even though they 
abhorred some of his views and were not unwilling to cause 
him.annoyance, manifest a similar zeal for their own views 
and aims? 

In illustration of the encouraging influence of Paul’s 
imprisonment, Trapp quotes the following from a letter sent 
by Bishop Ridley to John Bradford in which he tells of the 
effect produced on him by the death of John Rogers, the 


od 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 12-14 


martyred prebendary of St. Paul’s: ‘I thank our Lord God 
that since I heard of our dear brother Rogers’ departing, and 
stout confessing of Christ and his truth even unto death, my 
heart, blessed be God, rejoiced of it ; neither ever since that 
time I have felt any lumpish heaviness, as I grant I have felt 
sometimes before.’ 

The exact relation of the words in the Lord to the context 
is a matter of uncertainty. Bengel takes them closely with 


to venture, but the order of the Greek scarcely permits of. 


that. Both the A.V. and the R.V. attach the words to the 
brotherhood, and this is the connexion adopted by Alford, 
Moule, Kennedy, and others. We are often told that the 
phrase the brotherhood in the Lord (to which no exact parallel 
is to be found in the New Testament) would be tautological, 
inasmuch as the brotherhood, without any addition, would be 
an adequate and perfectly intelligible designation for the 


Christian community. It is hardly credible, however, that _ 


Christian terminology had by this time become so fixed and 
stereotyped that the expression the brotherhood in the Lord 
could not have been used. 

On the other hand, the words in the Lord may go closely 
with greater confidence. So taken they may express either 
the ground or the sphere of the confidence. In the former 
case the Lord is the personal object of the trust ; in the latter 
the confidence is exercised in that sphere in which Paul 
regards all true Christian activity as being exercised. Pauline 
usage would seem to point to the latter as the true interpreta- 
tion. See 2:24 of our epistle, and also Rom. 14:14, Gal. 
5: 10, 2 Thess. 3: 4, in all of which Paul seems to speak of his 
confidence, not as resting on the Lord, but as existing in the 
sphere of the Lord. Whatever be the correct grammatical 
construction, the phrase applies to those preachers whose 
spirit the Apostle condemns. We can only marvel at his 
magnanimity ! 

It is greater confidence to venture on speaking the word of 
God without being afraid that the Apostle’s imprisonment 


R 


inspires. Instead of the word of God the A.V. has ‘ the v 


word’ simply ; but the fuller expression is strongly attested, 
3 35 


THE -EPISTLESOPMPAUL TOPPER RaIli Prise | 


and doubtless is the correct reading. Compare Acts 4: 31.4 
Lightfoot remarks that ‘the Apostle accumulates words © 


expressive of courage.’ It is clear that it required courage © ..’ 


to speak the word of God in Ephesus. The calm confidence 
of the imprisoned Apostle, however, inspired the preachers. 
“They were infected with the contagion of Paul’s heroism. 
The sources of Paul’s consecration and of his comfort became 
more real to them, and no discouragement arising from pain 
or danger could hold its ground against these forces’ (Rainy 
p. 52). What a welcome issue of his imprisonment was all 
this! But it is one of the commonplaces of Christian history 
that trials and hardships redound to the progress of the 
gospel and the glory of God. 


DIFFERING MOTIVES AND A GENEROUS MAGNANIMITY (I. 15-18) 


15 Some of them, it is true, are actually preaching Christ from 

ry (© envy and rivalry, others from goodwill; the latter do it 
from love to me, knowing that I am set here to defend the 

%-/') gospel, but the former proclaim Christ for their own ends, 
with mixed motives, intending to annoy me as I lie in 

18 prison. What does it matter? Anyhow, for ulterior ends 
or honestly, Christ is being proclaimed, and I rejoice over 
that ; yes and I will rejoice over it. 


The Apostle now proceeds to speak of two classes of 
preachers. Of the one class he approves and commends the 
spirit and motives ; for the spirit and motives of the second 
class he has only censure and dispraise. Even when he 
condemns, however, he reveals his magnanimity. 

In the previous paragraph Paul has told his readers that his 
imprisonment has stimulated the majority of the local 
Christians to a more daring and fearless proclamation of the 
word of God. He implies, as we have seen, that a minority 
has remained unmoved. The question inevitably arises 
whether the two classes spoken of in the present paragraph 
answer to the majority and the minority respectively, or 
whether they are two subdivisions of the majority, which 
alone is actually mentioned in ver. 14. Our translation, by 

36 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 15-18 


opening ver. 15 with some of them, makes it clear that it 
regards the two classes as two subsections of the majority. 
This, we think, is the meaning of Paul’s words, even though 
the words of them are not actually represented in the Greek. 

Ellicott adopts the other view, and in this he is followed 
by many recent expositors. ‘ The mention of ‘‘ speaking the 
word,” ’ he writes, ‘ brings to the Apostle’s mind all who 
were doing so; he pauses then to allude to all.’ There is 
nothing in Paul’s language, however, to suggest that he has 
enlarged the field of his vision between ver. 14 and ver. I5. 
Having spoken of certain preachers in ver. 14, he immediately 
proceeds to say that some do one thing while others do some- 
thing else. Unless he means that these two classes are two 
sections of the preachers of ver. 14, his language is decidedly 
misleading. It would have been easy for Paul, had he so 
desired, to say, ‘ These indeed act in such and such a way, 
but there are other preachers who act in a different manner.’ 
The words he wrote indicate that the class whose spirit he 
deprecates is included in the majority spoken of in ver. 14. 
This, as we have already seen (p. 34), creates a problem, to 
which we shall have occasion to return. 

Some of them, it is true, are actually preaching Christ from 
envy and rivalry, others from goodwill. So the Apostle states 
the motives of the two classes of preachers ; and the statement 
is amplified in vers. 17 and 16. 

Some of them—there is nothing to show what proportion 
of the majority the ill-motived preachers formed. The word 
actually betokens Paul’s amazement as he contemplates the 
incongruity between the subject and the motive of their 
preaching. In this verse he speaks of preaching Christ, 
whereas in vers. 16 and 18 he speaks of proclaiming him. For 
the difference between the two verbs see on ver. 16, | 

Envy and rivalry are combined also in Rom. 1: 29, Gal. 
5:20, 21, 1 Tim. 6:4. The words picture these preachers 
as forming a party that stood over against Paul and his 
adherents ; they are envious of the impetus which the imprison- 
ment of Paul has given to the others, and their prime desire 
is to outmatch and have the advantage of their rivals. The 


37 


THE EPISTLESORNPAUL TOMA EMERILIPPIANS 


very phrase from envy is found in Mark 15: 10 = Matt. 27: 18, 
where we read of Pilate’s knowledge of the motive of the high- 
priests in handing Jesus over to him. 

_Envy of others and devotion to party—these are the things 
spoken of as. motives for preaching Christ! Trapp quotes 
Luther’s counsel to preachers ‘that they should see that 
those three dogs did not follow them into the pulpit—pride, 
covetousness, and envy’; and Wesley in one of his letters 
urges his preachers ‘ by prayer, by exhortation, and by every 
possible means, to oppose a party spirit, adding that ‘ this 
has always, so far as it has prevailed, been the bane of all 
true religion’ (Letters, p. 252). 

Others from goodwill: goodwill towards whom? Ellicott 
mentions and rejects the view of Estius, who takes it to be 
goodwill ‘ towards others in respect of their salvation.’ Paul 
means goodwill towards himself. In vers. 17 and 16, where 
the motives of the two classes are more fully stated, it is of 
their attitude to himself that the Apostle speaks; but of 
course goodwill towards him presupposes and includes good- 
will towards the gospel\which he proclaims. 

17,16 In these verses the order of the two classes is reversed. 
The A.V. follows a number of inferior authorities in placing 
ver. 16 before ver. 17, an arrangement obviously born of a 
desire to make the order tally with that of the clauses of 
ver. 15. 

Before we examine these two verses in detail we may 
notice the translation found in the margin of the American 
R.V., and advocated by Ellicott and Vincent. According 
to this translation the phrases from love (ver. 17) and for their 
own ends (ver. 16) are construed adjectivally to describe the 
two classes, and not adverbially as in our rendering. The 
translation runs as follows: ‘they that are moved by love 
do tt, knowing,’ etc., and ‘ but they that are factious proclaim 
Christ, not,’ etc. Ellicott and Vincent favour this way of 
translating the verses on the ground that the phrases from 
love and for their own ends, if taken adverbially, only repeat 
what has been said already in ver. 15. Beet is diametrically 
opposed to them on this point, preferring the rendering which 


38 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 15-18 


they reject, ‘since the words out of love add definitely to the 
sense already conveyed by the word ‘‘ goodwill”’ in ver. 15, 
noting that this goodwill is the central Christian virtue of 
love.’ Ellicott gives another reason for rejecting the rendering 
adopted in our translation, namely, that in it the force of the 
participial clause ‘ knowing that I am set here to defend the 
gospel’ (and the same would apply to the participial clause 
in ver. 16) is impaired, ‘ for the object of the Apostle is rather 
to specify the motives which caused this difference of behaviour 
in the two classes than merely to reiterate the nature of it.’ 
But surely in the translation rejected by Ellicott these parti- 
cipial clauses form a part of the statement of motive; they 
tell us why the two classes behaved as they did: they do 
more than tell us how they behaved. Furthermore, in the 
rendering advocated by Ellicott the parallelism of the two 
verses is strangely disturbed by the introduction of the words 
with mixed motives in ver. 16. So, even though Rom. 2:8 
and Gal. 3: 7 may be cited as giving some support to Ellicott’s 
rendering, we prefer to adhere to the other rendering—that of 
the A.V., the R.V., and our own translation—which (as 
Ellicott admits) is that of apparently all the ancient versions 
and the one adopted by nearly all the older expositors. 

~ The latter do it from love to me, knowing that I am set here 17 
_to defend the gospel. The words to me are not represented in 
the Greek ; still, love to me is probably the correct interpreta- 
tion, for the Apostle is dealing with the influence of his 
imprisonment on the preaching of the word. See the note on 
others from goodwill in ver. 15. He does not mean, however, 
mere personal attachment to himself, but (as the next clause 
shows) love to him as the representative and defender of the 
gospel. From this point of view there is justification for 
Bengel’s comment: ‘erga Christum et me.’ 

Nor is the word here directly represented in the Greek. It 
would be possible to interpret the words I am set of Paul’s 
appointment to the apostleship, but the context justifies and 
requires the interpretation adopted in our translation. Paul 
is concerned with the influence of his imprisonment, and it 
was of it that some of the preachers had perceived the divine 


39 


THE, EPISETLESOEPNPACL LOST REC RAILIP ET ages 


intention. The phrase I am set suggests that the Apostle 
thinks of himself as a soldier posted for duty. The use of the 
same verb in Luke 2 : 34 and 1 Thess. 3 : 3 should be compared. 

The words rendered to defend the gospel literally mean ‘ for 
the defence of the gospel,’ the same noun being used for 
‘defence ’ as in the clause ‘ as I defend the gospel’ in ver. 7. 
See the note there: -~Paul sees the hand of God in the events 
which have brought him to his present position, in which 
while he defends himself he is really defending the gospel. 
The preachers whom he commends share with him the know- 
ledge of the divine purpose in the strange march of events, 
and it is love to him as God’s instrument based upon this 
knowledge that inspires them. To them his imprisonment is 
not a sign of God’s displeasure ; rather they regard it as a divine 
appointment to a great and responsible task. 

16 The motives of the other class are now stated. They 
proclaim Christ for their own ends, with mixed motives, intend- 
ing to annoy meas I lie in prison. The verb rendered proclaim 
here and in ver. 18 is not the same as the verb rendered 
‘preach ’ in ver. 15 ; but there is no substantial difference of 
meaning. We may with Ellicott regard the verb proclaim 
as ‘perhaps presenting a little more distinctly the idea of 
promulgation, ‘‘ making fully known.”’ The introduction 
of the words proclaim Christ, after the practically identical 
expression in ver. 15, would seem to be an almost needless 
repetition. The sentence would have run smoothly and the 
meaning would have been perfectly clear had they been 
omitted. Why then are they introduced ? It is difficult not 
to agree with Lightfoot when he says that they ‘seem to be 
added to bring out the contrast between the character of their 
motives and the subject of their preaching.’ 

For their own ends is an excellent rendering of two Greek 
words—a preposition and a noun—which in the A.V. are ren- 
dered ‘ of contention,’ and in the R.V. ‘ of faction.’ The noun 
occurs also in 2:3, where our translation has ‘ for private 
ends,’ as well as in Rom. 2:8, 2 Cor. 12:20, Gal. 5: 20, 
and Jas. 3:14 and 16. «Hort (on Jas. 3: 14) describes it as 
‘a curious word with an obscure history.’ In the time of 


40 





CHAPTER I, VERSES 15-18 


Homer a cognate noun stands for a hired labourer, and the 
earliest meaning of the noun used in our text would seem 
to be ‘labour for hire.’ From this beginning it developed 
a number of meanings, of which one is ‘ scheming for office.’ 
It came to stand for ambition, rivalry, factiousness, selfishness. 
Its exact force must in each occurrence be determined by the 
context. Moulton and Milligan ( Vocabulary, p. 254) hold that 
‘the meaning of “‘ selfish ’”’ rather than ‘‘ factious ”’ ambition 
perhaps suits best all the N.T. occurrences.’ Still, in our 
passage, seeing that these preachers are spoken of as if they 
constituted a faction opposed to the Apostle, the ends which 
they sought would probably not be altogether personal. The 
advantage of the party would be their supreme concern. 

With mixed motives expresses Paul’s meaning exactly. 
Literally his words mean ‘not purely,’ that is, ‘not with 
motives that are all worthy.’ This is the only New Testament 
occurrence of the adverb, but the cognate adjective occurs 
several times. It is used in 4:8 of our epistle. The adverb 
is common in honorific inscriptions in the sense which it 
bears in our passage (see Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, 
p. 5). The words of Paul imply that the motives of these 
preachers were not wholly reprehensible. 

The Apostle adds that they intended to annoy him as he lay 
in his prison. What result did they anticipate from their 
preaching that would cause him annoyance? Was it some 
outward hurt or some inward vexation that they hoped to 
effect ? Some think it was their hope by exasperating the 
authorities to intensify the rigours of his imprisonment. But 
to this it has been pertinently replied that ‘ if they had irritated 
the authorities by their preaching they would themselves 
have been the first sufferers ’ (Gibb, in Hastings’ D.B., vol. iii, 
p. 841). Ellicott holds that they intended by their false 
teaching to call forth ill-treatment for Paul at the hands of 
Jews and Judaizing Christians. It is more probable, however, 
that it was some inward annoyance, some trouble of spirit, 
they hoped to cause. Paul’s declaration in ver. 18 that he 
will not cease to rejoice is in harmony with this view. The 
precise nature of the intended annoyance must remain a 


41 


\ 


THE EPISEL ES ORT PAUL TOSI A EW REIL IPR aye 


matter of conjecture. Calvin remarks that there would be 
many ways of annoying the Apostle which do not occur to 
us owing to our ignorance of the circumstances. Many are the 
suggestions which have been offered. Moule thinks they hoped 
to cause him annoyance by preventing inquirers from having 
access to him. Bengel suggests that the spread of the gospel 
among the Jews would cause the Gentile Christians to be 
indignant with Paul. Webster and Wilkinson think these 
preachers hoped to worry the Apostle by exciting the cpposi- 
tion of the Jews to the gospel which he proclaimed. Kennedy 
opines that, misreading his heart in the light of their own 
jealous feelings, they hoped to make him jealous of their 
success. Perhaps it was their desire, as Gibb suggests, to 
bring home to him the limitations and restraints of his condition 
as contrasted with their own unfettered freedom. 

Vincent does not think that these preachers deliberately 
set themselves to aggravate the sufferings of the Apostle. 
Whether that was so in fact or not will be considered presently. 
In any case, Paul distinctly attributes to them the intention 
of annoying him. The rendering intending to annoy me is fully 
justified, for the participle employed by Paul unmistakably 
conveys the idea of purpose: 

18 In this verse the Apostle’s amazing magnanimity reveals 
itself. Whether the preaching be done for ulterior ends or 
honestly, something happens in which he can rejoice. 

For ulterior ends renders one Greek word, a noun whose 
meaning 1s ‘ ostensible reason for which a thing is done (that is, 
commonly, the false reason), pretence, excuse, pretext’ (Souter). 
“In pretence’ is the literal rendering of the A.V. and the 
R.V. The very same expression is found in Mark 12: 40 = 
(Matt. 23: 14) = Luke 20: 47, where it describes the unreal 
praying of the scribes, and also in Acts 27:30. The noun 
occurs, but not in this identical construction, also in John 
15:22 and1 Thess. 2:5. In our passage the phrase furnishes 
an additional description of the way in which the preachers 
whom Paul condemns do their work. They pretend to 
preach for a certain reason, whereas the real reason is some- 
thing quite different. Their ostensible reason is to spread the 


42 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 15-18 


knowledge of the name of Christ ; their real reason, according 
to Paul, is to advance their own selfish ends and to annoy him. 
They are working for ulterior ends which are totally different 
from their avowed ends. 

Honestly means the exact opposite of all this. When the 
preaching is done honestly, the real motives coincide with the 
ostensible motives, and these would be none other than to 
glorify the name of Christ and to advance his cause. 

Christ is being proclaimed, declares the Apostle, whatever 
be the motives of the preachers or the spirit in which their 
propaganda is carried on. It is difficult to think that the 
gospel proclaimed by the preachers whom Paul censures can 
be the same as the gospel proclaimed by the Judaizers—that 
‘other sort of gospel, which is not another ’—of which the 
Apostle speaks in Gal. 1:6, 7. Would Paul admit that 
the judaizers proclaimed Christ in any sense that could cause 
him to rejoice ? 

Over that, that is, over the fact that Christ is being pro- 
claimed, the Apostle rejoices. It is implied that he is far from 
finding any ground for joy in the spirit of those whom he 
condemns. ‘I blame all even that speak the truth other- 
wise than in love,’ writes Wesley to some Irish friends. ‘ Keen- 
ness of spirit,’ he adds, ‘ and tartness of language are never _ 


to be commended ’ (Letters, p. 231). Paul’s attitude manifests » “~ 


his wisdom as well as his magnanimity. ‘To my humble 
apprehension,’ wrote Cobden, ‘it is as unwise as it is unjust ~ 
in any kind of political warfare to assail those who are disposed 
to co-operate, however slightly, in the attempt to overthrow 
a formidable and uncompromising enemy (quoted by Moffatt, 
Expositor, November 1914, p. 474). So Paul thought with 
respect to the warfare against evil. 

Lightfoot is insistent that we should render, not ‘I will 
rejoice,’ but ‘I shall rejoice,’ on the ground that the former 
of these two renderings ‘ brings out the idea of determination 
more strongly than the original justifies.’ But surely the 
future tense, following as it does upon the present, signifies 
the Apostle’s determination not to allow his rejoicing to cease. 
Why does he give expression to this determination? Is he 


43 


THE EPISTLE OF"PAUL POST HEVERILIP PIAS 


showing in advance that he would set but little store by any 
objection that might be raised on the ground that the pro- 
clamation in which he rejoices springs in part from so un- 
worthy a motive? Or is he curbing his fretful spirit and 
reassuring his own heart that his joy is justified? Lightfoot 
remarks that the abruptness of the language reflects the 
conflict that is going on in the Apostle’s mind. 

Who are these preachers whose motives and spirit the 
Apostle condemns? Many interpreters maintain that they 
are his old foes the Judaizers. The obvious objection to this 
view is that he deals so mildly with them. Some have found 
in the discrepancy between his attitude in the present passage 
and his attitude, for example, in the epistle to the Galatians 
a reason for denying the genuineness of our epistle. 

Attempts have been made to weaken the force of the 
objection we have just mentioned. Lightfoot points out that 
the circumstances reflected in the epistle to the Galatians are 
not analogous to those reflected in the present paragraph. 
There it was a case of imposing a false Christianity upon 
persons who had known the true, whereas here it is a case of 
evangelizing a heathen population. Better a false Christianity 
than no Chnistianity at all. Hence the tolerance of Paul. 
But can we think that the Apostle who has waged so strenuous 
a warfare against the Judaizers would so submissively permit 
the poisonous teaching to be spread even among a heathen 
population? It is sometimes suggested that the Apostle 
himself had changed, and was now less intolerant of the 
teaching which he had once so scathingly denounced. But 
the suggestion has little to commend it. 

The gospel proclaimed by these preachers must have been, 
we think, substantially identical with Paul’s own gospel. 
One feels—though it is not possible to adduce any proof—that 
they were Jews. They bore some ill-will towards the Apostle, 
which seemingly was personal. We have already drawn 
from Paul’s words the conclusion that they are included in 
the majority spoken of in ver. 14, and that it was Paul’s spirit 
and demeanour, and not any lenient view of his case on the 
part of the authorities, that gave them greater confidence to 


44 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 15-18 


preach. All this creates a problem, for we are conscious of a 
contradiction. How could men who were moved by the 
example of Paul’s fortitude be capable of motives so unworthy ? 

Can it be that their motives were not as deserving of censure 
as the Apostle’s words would lead us to suppose? It is 
generally admitted that in 2: 21 he employs extravagant Jan- 
guage of his fellow-workers ; and if the language is extravagant 
there, it may be so in the present passage as well. His spirit 
was fretful as he wrote. The splendid magnanimity of ver. 18 
has blinded us to the signs of annoyance in vers. 15 and 16. 
The statement in ver. 18 of his determination to rejoice may 
well be a deliberate attempt on his part to curb his agitated 
spirit. Thus viewed, his magnanimity is no whit less magni- 
ficent ; itiseven more amazing. These preachers were doubt- 
less sincere and earnest men. Paul knew that it was ‘in the 
Lord ’ that they were inspired by his example. But they were 
resentful of something, and, it may be, had manifested some 
pettiness of spirit. Paul is hurt.. Words escape him which 
in a calmer mood he would scarcely have uttered. He charges 
them with a deliberate desire to annoy him! He closes the 
paragraph, however, on a note of victory. His indignation is 
mastered. He rejoices, and he will rejoice! The irritation 
has produced a pearl! 


CONFIDENCE OF VINDICATION, AND SERENITY IN FACE OF LIFE 
OR DEATH (I. 19-26) 


The outcome of all this, I know, will be my release, as you 1g 


continue to pray for me, and as I am provided with the 


Spirit of Jesus Christ—my eager desire and hope being 20 


that I may never feel ashamed but that now as ever I 
may do honour to Christ in my own person by fearless 
courage. Whether that means life or death, no matter ! 
As life means Christ to me, so death means gain. But 2! 
then, if it is to be life here below, that means fruitful 


work. So—well, I cannot tell which to choose ; I am 23 


in a dilemma between the two. My strong desire is to 


depart and be with Christ, for that is far the best. But 24 


45 


25 
26 


19 


THE EPISTLE? OF *PACL (TOV PHEy Py aiLirPiAane 


for your sakes it is necessary I should live on here below. 
I am sure it is, and so I know I shall remain alive and 
serve you all by forwarding your progress and fostering 
the joy of your faith. Thus you will have ample cause 
to glory in Christ Jesus over me—over my return to you. 


The words the outcome of all this will be my release are 
printed in italics to show that they are quoted from the Old 
Testament. They are taken from Job 13:16. References 
to the book of Job are few and far between in the New Testa- 
ment, and several scholars seem reluctant to see a quotation 
in the present passage. There are, however, in the Greek five 
words in exactly the same order as they occur in the LXX 
rendering of Job 13: 16; so that it is gratuitous to say there 
is no quotation. So far from there being no quotation from 
Job, it seems to us that the only way of arriving at the true 
meaning of Paul is through a study of the context in Job. 
Paul’s meaning at this point is not easy to determine, and 
has been the subject of much discussion. It is strange that 
but few of the commentators make any use of Job in the 
endeavour to elucidate the meaning of Paul. Kennedy is 
one of the exceptions, and his words are not many. He finds 
in Job corroboration for his view that Paul is here referring 
to his release from captivity. Mackenzie, in the article on 
Philippians in the Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, remarks 
that the words of Job are quoted ‘ with the original context 
clearly in view,’ but he makes no further mention of the context 
in Job. 

What does Paul mean by this ? Some think it stands for his 
present situation in its entirety ; others find in it a reference 
to his afflictions; others still understand him to mean the 
fact that Christ is being proclaimed. Whatever the Apostle 
means by this, he declares that he knows it will turn out to 
his ‘salvation’ (R.V.). What meaning are we to give to 
‘salvation’ here? Our translation interprets it as release from 
captivity. By some it is taken to mean the bracing of Paul’s 
spiritual life to face his trial or the remaining stages of his 
trial; by others his salvation in the fullest sense, including 


46 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 19-26 


final glory in heaven. Not one of these interpretations of 
the word ‘salvation’ can be described as in all respects 
satisfactory. In particular we find it hard to think that Paul 
means his release from imprisonment, for in the next verse 
he says that the ‘salvation’ will ensue whether he lives or 
whether he dies. If we were forced to select an interpretation 
from among these various meanings given to the words this 
and ‘ salvation,’ we should prefer to understand Paul to mean 
that out of his present circumstances, in some ways so dis- 
tressing, there would issue such a bracing of his spiritual life 
as would enable him to face with equanimity all that the 
future might have in store. We do not think, however, that 
this is what the words mean. 

It appears to us that the Apostle recognized certain points 
of resemblance between the situation of Job as reflected in 
Job 13 and his own circumstances, and that he makes the 
words of Job his own in what is essentially their original 
meaning. This accounts for the fact that Paul’s meaning is 
not immediately evident. 

Job 13: 16 is thus rendered by Driver in the International 
Critical Commentary : 


‘ Even that is to me (an omen of) salvation ; 
For not before him doth a godless man come’; 


and Buchanan Gray, who writes the commentary on this 
chapter, explains ‘that’ to mean ‘the fact that Job can 
and does maintain his integrity before God,’ and ‘ salvation’ 
to signify “ success or victory in his argument with God.’ The 
words of Job, then, in their original context would seem to 
state his conviction, based upon his ability and willingness 
to plead his cause before God, that he will have victory in his 
argument with the Almighty. In other words, his conscious- 
ness of innocence makes him confident of vindication. Paul, 
we think, makes use of the words of Job to state that his own 
consciousness of integrity—the feeling that he has been in 
the right in all that has brought him to his present situation— 
justifies his hope of vindication. Whether or not death be 


47 


THE EPISTREENOPGPAUL LOSPHESLAITIPEIANS 


his fate, he will be vindicated. His certainty of vindication 
reminds us of the words of Newman in his Apologia: ‘I have 
never doubted, that in my hour, in God’s hour, my avenger 
will appear, and the world will acquit me of untruthfulness, 
even though it be not while I live.’ 

Attention will be drawn in the notes on the remainder of 
this verse and on ver. 20 to some points of contact with the 
context in Job which will support our contention that Paul 
is quoting Job 13: 16 with the original context in view. See 
the paper on ‘ Paul and Job: a Neglected Analogy’ in the 
Expository Times for November 1924. 

It may be asked whether the reference to Job is not too 
casual and vague to convey to Paul’s readers the meaning we 
have given to the words. Would the Philippians recognize 
areference to Jobatall? What knowledge would such Gentile 
converts have of the Old Testament ? Did the Apostle’s words 
always convey to his first readers all that was in his mind? 
After his release from his imprisonment at Philippt it is 
possible that he may have spoken to the brothers whom he 
saw and encouraged in Lydia’s house (Acts 16: 40) of his 
vindication on that occasion ; and for all we know he may then 
have made use of the passage from Job which he here quotes, 
thus making it familiar to the Philippians. The possibility 
must be borne in mind, too, that the Philippians themselves 
had used the words of Job in a letter sent to the Apostle. 
Note that he takes for granted that they are praying that 
‘ this may turn to his salvation.’ Had they informed him that 
that was a subject of prayer at Philippi? If they had, it is 
not impossible that they had used the very words which Paul 
employs when he gives expression to his certainty that their 
prayer will be answered. 

We shall see when we come to examine 2: 12 ff. that Paul 
there compares and contrasts himself with Moses when he 
gave his parting injunctions to the children of Israel. If 
that suggestion is well founded, and if we are right in our 
view that in the present passage he is noting the points of 
resemblance between himself and Job, then it would appear 
that as he lay in prison the Apostle solaced his soul by dwelling 


48 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 19-26 


upon the analogies between his own lot and the circumstances 
of the saints of God of whom he read in the Scriptures. 

His vindication will come, he says, as you continue to pray 
for me, and as I am provided with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. 
Paul has said much about his prayers on behalf of the Philip- 
pians ; now he refers to their prayers on his behalf, and to the 
rich bestowment of the Spirit of Jesus Christ which he expects 
therefrom. Compare 2 Cor. 1:11. It is clear that he sets 


great store by the ministry of intercession. So Ignatius says: 


to the Philadelphians: ‘ Your prayer will make me perfect 
for God’ (Philad. 5). 

The Greek makes it clear that the clause and as I am pro- 
vided with the Spirit of Jesus Christ is to be construed in close 
connexion with the preceding clause. Paul thinks of the 
Spirit of Jesus Christ as coming to him in answer to the prayers 
of the Philippians. It is possible to interpret his words to 
mean ‘as I am provided with the aid which the Spirit of 
Jesus Christ supplies’; but it is better (as in our translation) 
to regard the Spirit as that which is supplied. The Spirit is 
here the gift, not the giver. Lightfoot needlessly finds both 
ideas in the words. 

This is the only place in the New Testament where the 
exact phrase the Spirit of Jesus Christ occurs, although equiva- 
lent expressions are not uncommon. Some take the phrase 
to mean ‘ the Spirit which is Jesus Christ’; and it must be 
admitted that in several passages Paul seems to be identifying 
the Spirit with the Risen Lord. Here, however, the meaning 
probably is the Spirit which Jesus bestows. The Spirit given 
by him would produce in Paul a spirit akin to that manifested 
by him in the days of his flesh. The order of the names 
Jesus Christ suggests that Paul is thinking mainly of the dis- 
position of his Master. The manifestation of the same spirit 
by the Apostle would constitute his vindication. Whether 
he lived or died, he could and would show the same spirit 
that Jesus showed. 

A noun used by Paul in the present clause indicates that he 
expects to receive an abundant supply of the Spirit. Elsewhere 
in the New Testament it occurs only in Eph. 4:16; but the 


49 


“ 
< 
’ 


THE BPISTLE OF PAUL TOWAEY PALI Pei ANs. 


cognate verb is found in 2 Pet. 1:5 and rz. Moulton and 
Milligan ( Vocabulary, p. 251) quote from a first-century papyrus 
in which the verb is used by a man who is lodging a complaint 
against his wife. ‘I for my part,’ says the man, ‘ provided 
for my wife in a manner that exceeded my resources.’ The 
same scholars add that ‘the passage may perhaps be taken 
as illustrating the ‘‘ generous”’ connotation underlying the 
corresponding substantive, as in Phil. 1: Ig.’ 

20 Literally rendered, the opening words of this verse would 
run: ‘in accordance with my eager desire and hope that I 
may never feel ashamed.’ Paul’s expectation of vindication 
accords with a desire and a hope that tenant his heart. The 
feeling of his heart affords ground for the expectation. This 
clause lends support to the view we have taken of the opening 
words of ver. 19, for in the case of Job, as we have seen, it 
was his inner consciousness—his sense of integrity, and his 
willingness to maintain that integrity before God—that 
furnished the ground of his hope that he would ultimately be 
vindicated. 

Eager desire translates one word in the Greek—a noun 
found also in Rom. 8:19, and apparently nowhere else. 
Moulton and Milligan endorse the view that the word may 
have been Paul’s own formation. It isa strong word, implying 
a stretching-out of the head in eager longing to catch sight of 
the object of desire, and a turning away from all things else. 
The cognate verb (in simple form) is used in an ‘ interesting 
sixth-century papyrus from Aphrodite in Egypt in which 
certain oppressed peasants petition a high official whose 
parousia they have been expecting, assuring him that they 
await him ‘‘ as those in Hades watch eagerly for the parousia 
of Christ the everlasting God’’’ (Moulton and Milligan, 
Vocabulary, p. 63. See also Deissmann, Light from the Ancient 
East, pp. 377, 378). ‘St. Paul,’ says Trapp, ‘ stood as it were 
on tip-toes to see which way he might best glorify God by 
life or by death.’ 

There is in the Apostle’s heart more even than this eager 
desire ; there is hope as well. The two nouns are in the Greek 
bound together by one article. 


50 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 19-26 


The negative side of this double feeling is expressed in the 
words that I may never feel ashamed. The Apostle desires 
and hopes that he will never do anything unworthy of his 
Lord or of his own convictions, anything that will cause him 
to hang down his head in shame. Is it at all surprising that 
the feeling of his soul engendered a conviction that sooner or 
later, whether by life or by death, he would be vindicated ? 
The heart that cherished the desire and hope of which Paul 
was conscious surely would not for ever remain a subject of 
suspicion and obloquy. 

But that now as ever I may do honour to Christ in my 
own person by fearless courage—that is the positive side of 
his desire and hope. The translation here paraphrases the 
language of Paul in some measure. What he actually says 
is not that I may do honour to Christ, but ‘that Christ may 
be honoured.’ The paraphrase obscures the significant fact 
that the Apostle deliberately changes from the first person 
to the third, and employs a passive instead of an active con- 
struction. He seems to be on the point of saying ‘ that I may 
honour Christ,’ when he suddenly pulls himself up and says 
“that Christ may be honoured,’ as though he felt that the 
construction which he had originally intended to use would 
have given too great prominence to himself. Now implies 
that the time of crisis was not far distant. And how eloquent 
are the words as ever! His conscience was clear that he had 
always honoured his Saviour; and this would fortify his 
conviction that he would not fail to do so now. To honour or 
magnify Christ is to show forth and enhance his glory before 
men. 

The literal meaning of the words rendered in my own person 
is ‘in my body.’ Paul thinks of his body as the scene or 
sphere in which his Saviour would be honoured. Whether 
he lived or whether he died, Christ would be honoured in 
his body : if he lived, he would be honoured through the toil, 
the drudgery, the suffering which his body would undergo ; 
if he were condemned to die, by the spirit in which he would 
surrender his body to its fate. 

The noun used in the phrase by fearless courage means 

51 


THE EPISTLEVOR PAUL TO*TBEVPHILIPPIANS 


literally ‘freedom or plainness of speech’; and from that 
developed the meaning of courage—the freedom from fear 
which ordinarily accompanies plainness of speech. As Paul 
may be thinking of his coming trial, it is quite possible that 
he is using the word in its original sense of boldness of utter- 
ance ; though, on the other hand, it is equally possible that it 
bears here its more general sense of courage. Whichever 
meaning was uppermost in Paul’s mind, there is here another 
point of contact with Job, for in the verses which imme- 
diately precede the one quoted by Paul in ver. 19 Job in 
memorable words declares his intention of approaching the 
Almighty fearlessly and with boldness of speech. This is how 
Driver renders Job 13 : 13-15: 


‘ Hold your peace, let me alone, that J may speak, 
And let come on me what will. 
I will take my flesh in my teeth, 
And put my life in my hand ! 
Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope ; 
Nevertheless I will maintain my ways before him.’ 


The words Whether that means life or death, no matter! 
do not mean, as our translation might perhaps suggest, that 
Paul is indifferent whether his fate is to be life or death; 
they mean rather that, be his fate life or be it death, he is 
confident that Christ will be honoured in his person. So far 
as the magnifying of his Master goes, it matters not whether 
it be his destiny to live or to die. It is clear that he does not 
yet know what the issue of his imprisonment will be (compare 
2:23), and the passages in which he speaks of again visiting 
Philippi must be interpreted in the light of this uncertainty. 

Here again we are reminded of Job, who was determined 
to be vindicated, even though vindication should entail his 
death. In the passage just quoted from the book of Job, 
Driver is at one with the margin of the R.V. in representing 
the patriarch not merely as willing to face all hazards, but also 
as convinced that death would be his lot. We believe that 
Paul also in his inmost heart anticipated for himself no other 
fate than death. 


52 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 19-26 


In the Greek this verse consists of two separate and distinct 21 
clauses—joined together by asimple ‘ and ’—in neither of which 

is the copula expressed: ‘ For to me to live—Christ, and to 
die—gain.’ Our translation-—as life means Christ to me, so — 


death means gain—omits the ‘for,’ and also co-ordinates 


the two clauses by means of as and so. 

The mention of life and death in the last verse leads the 
Apostle to state what each of the two means to him. If we 
are to take cognizance of the ‘ for,’ the logical connexion implied 
is not quite clear. Paul has just declared that whether his fate 


be life or death, Christ will be honoured. Now the clause ‘ for 


life means Christ to me’ comes in naturally as an explanation 
of his confidence that he would honour Christ by his life; 
but it is not so evident how the clause death means gain 
provides an explanation of, or a reason for, the statement that 
he would honour him also by his death. Does Paul mean that 
inasmuch as death to him means gain he will be able to face 
it with a courage and a serenity which will be an honouring 
of his Master? Perhaps, however, our translation is justified 
in refusing to find any very close logical connexion between 


ver. 20 and ver. 21. 


Life means Christ to me, says the Apostle. If he is destined 


to live, life will mean—as it has meant ever since his con- 


version—Christ! Life to him has no meaning apart from 
Christ. Christ is the object, the motive, the inspiration, 
the goal of all he does. ‘Quicquid vivo (vita naturali), 
Christum vivo,’ is Bengel’s paraphrase. 

Death means gain—just because life means Christ. Death 
here, of course, is not the act of dying, but the condition into 
which the Apostle would be ushered when his life here below 


shouldend. That condition too will bea life that means Christ, 


only with the limitations and restrictions of this earthly life 
removed. That is why death means gain. Some scholars 
have thought that the words of Wisd. of Sol. 3 : 1-3 were in 
Paul’s mind as he wrote. His view of death stands in strong 


contrast to the notion of ‘ the foolish’ as set forth in that 


passage. When life means Christ, the prospect of closer 
fellowship with him, and of nobler, more unfettered service 


53 


THE EPISTLE, OF ‘PAUL TO LHE PAILIPPIANS 


rendered to him, creates a serenity in the face.of death unknown 
under any other circumstances. 

There is emphasis on the words to me—a stronger emphasis 
than our translation would lead one to think. What is the 
explanation of this emphasis? Is the Apostle contrasting 
himself with the heathen thousands by whom he is surrounded, 
to whom Christ is unknown, and who would regard death as 
anything but gain? Or is he contrasting himself with his 
readers, to whom his death would be a loss? Is the emphasis 
an attempt to assuage their grief at the prospect of his death ? 
Howsoever they may view his death, let them rest assured 
that for him it could only mean gain. Or can it be that the 
contrast implied in the emphasis is between Paul and Job, who 
has been in the Apostle’s mind, as we have seen, when he 
was writing vers. Ig and 20? Death for Job was not some- 
thing desirable in itself, but an untoward experience he was 
prepared to risk in order to maintain his integrity before God. 
In an earlier passage than the one from which Paul quotes in 
ver. I9g—namely, in 10: 20-22, which we quote from Driver’s 
rendering—Job says: 

‘ Are not the days of my life few ? 
Look away from me, that I may brighten up a little, 
Before I go whence I shall not return, 
Unto the land of darkness and dense darkness, 
A land of gloom, like blackness, 


A land of dense darkness and disorder, 
And where the shining is as blackness.’ 


How different the prospect of the Apostle! Because life to him 
means Christ, death means gain. 

22 Butthen, continues the Apostle, if it is to be life here below, 
that means fruitful work. So—well, I cannot tell which to 
choose. The interpretation of this verse is a well-known 
difficulty. It will help us here again if we start with the bald, 
literal rendering of Paul’s words. Literally translated, the 
verse runs: ‘ But if to live in flesh this to me fruit of work 
and what I shall choose I do not make known.’ What are 
we to make of this? Lightfoot would regard the verse as 
an interrogation with the apodosis suppressed. He renders: 


54 


CHAPTER I, VERSES \19-26 


‘But what if my living in the flesh will bear fruit, etc.? In 
fact what to choose I know not.’ This interpretation, however, 
has not met with much acceptance, and is probably to be set 
aside. Taking the opening words as a conditional clause, 
we may render in two ways: 

(a) ‘ But if to live in the flesh,—7f this is the fruit of my 
work, then what I shall choose I wot not ’ (R.V., text). 

(b) ‘ But if to live in the flesh be my lot, this is the fruit 
of my work: and what I shall choose I wot not” (R.V., 
margin). 

On these two methods of construing the words different 
interpretations have been based : 

(1) Some, adopting the former method, understand the words 
to mean: ‘ But if to live is going to mean for me fruitful 
toil, then I cannot tell which to choose.’ 

This interpretation is accepted by a large number of scholars. 

(2) Others, adopting the second method of construing the 
words, take them to mean: ‘ But if I am destined to live, 
that will mean fruitful toil on my part—and which of the 
two to choose I cannot tell.’ 

This interpretation also can boast a long array of sponsors, 
though some scholars find the ellipsis which necessitates the 
insertion of the words be my lot in the margin of the R.V. too 
awkward to be admissible. 

It will be seen that this second interpretation is the one 
adopted in our text, and it is, we think, the most satisfactory 
if the whole verse as it stands is original. The reflection 
embodied in the words as thus understood is prompted 
seemingly by a fear that the Philippians might draw a mis- 
taken inference from the Apostle’s statement that death means 
gain forhim. He will not let them think that he is tired of life 
and pining for death ; so he says: but then, if it is to be life 
here below, that means fruitful work. 

(3) A third interpretation is possible, and is advocated 
by Maurice Jones. He adopts the text of the R.V. as the 
literal rendering, but he objects to the commonly accepted 
interpretation of the words ‘ fruit of work.’ His paraphrase 
will show the meaning he attaches to this phrase and to the 


39 


THE EPISTLE} OFO PAUL |fOCTHENEOILIPEIANG 


verse as a whole: ‘If my work in the past, with all its rich 
results in the mission-field and the plenteous harvest garnered 
for Christ, makes it desirable or necessary that I should go on 
living and working—then when I measure this against the rest 
and peace I gain in death, what to choose I dare not venture 
to declare.’ We do not think, however, that this interpreta- 
tion is as probable as the one adopted in our translation. 

Not one of these interpretations can claim to be quite 
satisfactory ; and we are disposed to think that the major 
part of the verse—all except the last clause—is an interpola- 
tion in the text. The last clause would come quite naturally 
after ver. 21: ‘ As life means Christ to me, so death means 
gain ; and which to choose I cannot tell.’ We suggest that 
two short marginal comments have worked their way into 
the text at this point. Apart from the introductory words 
but if (which may have been added by someone who was 
endeavouring to form an intelligible sentence out of the inter- 
polated words), the part of the verse which we take to be an 
interpolation, when literally rendered, runs as follows: ‘to 
live in flesh this to me fruit of work.’ Our suggestion is that 
originally these words formed two distinct marginal com- 
ments, thus':; (1) “to live: inflesh}’ and (2) “this tojmer: 
fruit of work.’ ‘To live’ comes in ver. 21, and someone in 
a marginal note added to this the words ‘in flesh’ as an 
explanation of it. Similarly ‘this to me’ occurs in ver. 19, 
and ‘ fruit of work’ was in this case added in the marginal 
note as the explanation of ‘this.’ This suggestion is stated 
somewhat more fully in a note in the Expository Times for 
December 1923. 

Whatever be the right view to take of the first part of 
ver. 22, in the last clause Paul declares his inability to tell 
whether he would choose life or death if the choice were left 
to him. I cannot tell is a decided improvement on the ‘I 
wot not’ (i.e. ‘ I know not ’) of the R.V. as being a more exact 
rendering of the Greek. Moulton and Milligan ( Vocabulary, 
p. 129) give it as their opinion that the verb used by Paul has 
the meaning ‘to make known’ in all its N.T. occurrences, 
“even Phil. 1:22.’ Why does Paul say he cannot tell? 

56 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 19-26 


Surely not because, as Vincent suggests, ‘he felt that under 
the strong pressure of his desire to depart, he might be tempted 
to express himself too strongly in favour of his own wish.’ 
He was, as a matter of fact, in a dilemma. Thisis how Trapp 
quaintly puts it: ‘As a loving wife sent for by her husband 
‘far from home, and yet loth to leave her children, is in a muse 
and doubt what to do, so was the Apostle.’ How free from 
all worry and agitation Paul must have been to be able in this 
calm fashion to balance the contending attractions of life and 
death ! 

In the words I am in a dilemma between the two the Apostle 23 
seems to picture himself as standing between life and death ; 
each attracts him; but the attraction exerted upon him by 
either is so strong that it does not permit him to approach 
the other. Our translation scarcely does justice to the strength 
of the pressure brought to bear upon him by the alternatives. 
It will help us to realize how powerful that pressure is if we 
note that the verb used here is used also in Luke 12:50 
(‘How I am distressed till it is all over!’), in Acts 18:5 
(‘ Paul was engrossed in this preaching of the word’), and in 
2 Cor. 5: 14 (‘I am controlled by the love of Christ’). 

So far as personal predilection goes, Paul is not in any doubt. 
My strong desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far 
the best. The word here used for strong desire is not the same 
as that rendered ‘ eager desire ’in ver.20. The verb translated 
to depart occurs in one other place only in the New Testament, 
namely in Luke 12 : 36, where it means ‘ to return.’ Moulton 
and Milligan quote a papyrus passage in which it bears the 
latter meaning (Vocabulary, p. 36); and they also cite a 
memorial inscription in which it means ‘ to die.’ The cognate 
noun is used in 2 Tim. 4: 6—in a passage which is probably 
from Paul himself—in the sense of ‘ death.’ The metaphor in 
these words is drawn either from loosing the moorings of a 
ship or from breaking up a camp. Whether either of these 
metaphors was actually in Paul’s mind as he wrote the present 
verse is more than we can tell. Vincent remarks that his 
circumstances ‘would more naturally suggest the military 
than the nautical metaphor,’ and adds that ‘ singularly enough, 


37 


THE) EPISTLE! OF PAUL (TOV THR PHILiPeiaAna 


nautical expressions and metaphors are very rare in his 
writings. But there is nothing singular in a Jew making 
but scant use of nautical terms and metaphors. 

It is a natural and legitimate inference to draw from the 
words we are now considering that the Apostle expected to 
find himself in the presence of Christ immediately after death ; 
for surely had he contemplated being ensepulchred in uncon- 
sciousness and inactivity during the interval between his death 
and the parousia of his Lord, he would not have hesitated to 
choose to remain in the flesh. It is often said that his concep- 
tion of the intermediate state must have changed, since in 
1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians he had spoken of death as 
a sleep. See 1 Thess. 4: 13-15, 5:10, and I Cor. 15:51. 
We know too little about the Apostle’s conception of the inter- 
mediate state to be dogmatic ; but it may be doubted whether 
there is any difference between his thought of that state as 
reflected in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians and the con- 
ception implied in our epistle. Although in the former 
epistles he speaks of the dead being wakened for the judgment 
by the trumpet of God, we must not be too certain that he 
does not think of the spirits of those who sleep as being all the 
time in communion with Christ. In his note on 1 Thess. 5: Io 
Findlay draws from that passage the inference that even during 
the sleep of death those who die in Christ are living somewhere 
with and in him. ‘ Just as our natural life,’ he says, ‘ holds 
its course unbroken through waking or sleeping hours, so 
our spiritual life in Christ continues whether we are awake 
to this world or the body lies asleep in the grave.’ The same 
conception of the intermediate state as involving communion 
with Christ underlies 2 Cor. 5:8, where the Apostle tells us 
that he ‘ would fain get away from the body and reside with 
the Lord’; and we cannot fail to be reminded of the words 
of Jesus spoken on the cross to the dying criminal: ‘I tell 
you truly, you will be in paradise with me this very day’ 
(Luke 23: 43). 

If we are right in thinking that in the present passage the 
Apostle is entertaining the expectation that immediately 
after death he will go into the presence of Christ, that would 


58 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 19-26 


not of necessity imply, as Maurice Jones thinks, that he had 
discarded the conceptions of a visible advent of Christ and a 
resurrection. The references to these events in other parts 
of the epistle are by no means incompatible with the view we 
have taken of the present verse. 

When the Apostle adds for that is far the best, he uses a 
phrase of triple force, so desirous is he of expressing fully his 
sense of the superior excellence of being with Christ, even as 
compared with living in the flesh a life that means Christ. 
The Vulgate literally renders the phrase by multo magis melius. 

But, continues the Apostle, for your sakes it is necessary I 24 
should live on here below. What he actually says is ‘ more 
necessary ’; and although we admit that the positive adjective 
is all that an English rendering demands, we cannot forbear 
wondering why Paul should employ the comparative. Perhaps 
the force of the comparative may be stated thus: if the 
alternatives were set before him, he would feel some obligation 
to choose both ; but he declares that the obligation to stay is 
greater than the obligation to depart. The form of expression 
used for ‘ living here below ’ shows that the Apostle is thinking 
of the limitations, the difficulties, the toil, that will be entailed 
in remaining in this life; but, however eager he may be 
to escape from them, however mighty his desire to be with his 
Lord, his personal longing weighs but little in comparison with 
the opportunity of being of service to the Philippians and his 
other converts, so deeply has he drunk of the spirit of him 
of whom he says in another place that ‘rich though he was, 
he became poor for the sake of you, that by his poverty you 
might be rich’ (2 Cor. 8:49). 

I am sure it is, he adds. He has no doubt whatsoever that 25 
to remain here for their sakes would be his duty if the choice 
were left to him, because he is convinced that his remaining 
would be for their good. No mock modesty blinds him to their 
need of him or to his value for them. This clause is eloquent 
of his sense of his worth as a servant of Christ. 

Lightfoot objects to the manner of construing this clause 
adopted in our translation ; he refuses to refer the it to what 
Paul has just said, namely, that the continuance of his life 


59 


THE EPISTLE: OF PAUL TOTHE PHITIPEIANS 


would be advantageous to his readers. He prefers to take 
the present clause closely with the words that follow, thus 
getting the meaning: ‘I am confidently persuaded that I 
shall remain.’ There is, however, no cogent reason for thus 
departing from the more obvious meaning of the words. 

His sense of his readers’ need of him kindles within him a 
momentary assurance of acquittal: and so I know I shall 
remain alive and serve you all. The closing words of ver. 20 
show, as we have seen, that the Apostle does not yet know 
whether life or death is to be his lot ; and his words in the 
present verse must be interpreted in the light of this uncertainty 
regarding the issue of his imprisonment. He is merely giving 
expression to a personal conviction based on his sense of the 
Philippians’ need of him. The future with all the details of 
its happenings does not lie open to his gaze. But just at the 
moment the need of his converts comes so vividly before him 
that he expresses, in words more definite than the hard facts 
of the situation warrant, the impression that he will be spared 
for their sakes. 

The verb rendered serve is a compound of the simple verb 
rendered remain alive. The compound means ‘to remain 
beside, to stand by one,’ and so to serve. Paul’s impression 
is not merely that he will remain alive ; he might conceivably 
so remain and yet be of no service to his readers. He antici- 
pates that he will be again in their midst to serve them; he 
sees himself once more at Philippi, in happy, helpful fellowship 
with the Philippians. And his ministry will extend to them 
all. Once again he lets them see that he does not countenance 
their divisions. 

By forwarding your progress and fostering the joy of your 
faith—that is how he would serve them. The same noun is 
used here for progress as is used in ver. 12 of the advance of the 
gospel. Elsewhere in the New Testament it occurs only in 
1 Tim. 4:15. Some expositors hold that progress (as well as 
joy) should be taken closely with faith ; but Paul’s language is 
not decisive on the point. In either case the meaning is the 
same ; for the only progress Paul would be concerned to forward 
would be the progress of their faith. 

60 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 19-26 


Faith seems here to stand for the experience that is based 
upon trust in God and Christ. Paul assumes that joy is an 
element in that experience; the joy of the first Christians 
meets us at every turn in the New Testament ; and whenever 
in the history of the Church there has been a deepening of 
faith, there has also been an increase of joy. That the Apostle 
should specify the fostering of his readers’ joy as one of the 
means by which he would serve them shows that his imprison- 
ment and the uncertainty of his present condition had not 
succeeded in beclouding the joy of his own heart. 

Thus you will have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus 26 
over me—over my return to you. That would be the result 
of his ministry among them. To glory means to exult with joy. 
They would have ample cause to exult, and that cause would 
be found in Paul himself—but it would all be in the sphere of 
Christ Jesus! Christ is the sphere of. the glorying of the 
Christian as of all else that he does; and when he is the 
sphere the glorying is no vain boasting. Some writers have 
thought that the Philippians may themselves have spoken 
of the Apostle as the ground of their glorying, which would 
account for the manner of Paul’s reference to himself in this 
verse. 

The words over my return to you expand and explain the 
preceding over me. The noun used by Paul of his return is 
the word ‘ parousia,’ on which see Deissmann, Light from the 
Ancient East, pp. 372-8. The ground of the Philippians’ 
exultation would be the Apostle, not imprisoned in a distant 
cell, but back with them, present again as in days gone by 
to help and to inspire. 


AN EXHORTATION TO LIVE A LIFE WORTHY OF THE GOSPEL 
OF CHRIST (I. 27-30) 


Only, do lead a life that is worthy of the gospel of Christ. 27 
Whether I come and see you or only hear of you in 
absence, let me know you are standing firm in a common 
spirit, fighting side by side like one man for the faith of 
the gospel. Never be scared for a second by your oppo- 28 

61 


29 


30 


27 


THE ‘EPISTLE: OF PAUL WO PAE VERILIPPIANS 


nents ; your fearlessness is a clear omen of ruin for them 
and of your own salvation—at the hands of God. For 
on behalf of Christ you have the favour of suffering no 
less than of believing in him, by waging the same conflict 
that, as once you saw and now you hear, I wage myself. 


At this point there begins a well-marked section of the 
epistle, extending from 1:27 to 2: 18, in which the Apostle 
manifests his concern about a tendency to disunion that was 
revealing itself in the Church at Philippi. The whole section 
is a closely-woven unit in which Paul endeavours to impress 
upon the Philippians the duty of their forming one compact, 
harmonious body free from all disputes and dissensions, each 
member sacrificing personal desires and ambitions in order 
to promote the good of the whole. 

In the present paragraph (I : 27-30) Paul urges his readers 
to manifest a united firmness on behalf of the gospel, and a 
self-control based upon an appreciation of the meaning of 
suffering. 

The word only is not infrequently used by Paul in the 
manner in which he employs it here; see, e.g., 1 Cor. 7: 39, 
Gal. 2: 10, 5: 13, 2 Thess.2:7. Whether the Apostle comes 
to Philippi or not, there is one thing his readers must not 
fail to do. If he does not come to them, it is no less their 
duty to lead a life worthy of the gospel of Christ, for their life 
in Christ is not to be dependent upon the stimulus provided 
by his presence with them. He seems to be preparing them 
for the possibility that they may see him no more. ‘ Now, 
therefore, dear brothers,’ writes Savonarola to the Brethren 
of his convent, ‘ detach yourselves from all human affection, 
aye, even from your affection for myself. ... Of a truth 
your love for me were, then, indeed, a pure love if any one 
of you from the time that I left you took care to cleave more 
closely unto God. . . . But if, sorrowing beyond measure, 
ye so lament me absent as to think that without me ye cannot 
live, then, indeed, not yet is your love for me pure and true, 
and, therefore, surely God hath willed that I should be with- 
drawn from you in order that ye may know that for the future 

62 


GHALTER?: 1, VERSES 727-30 


ye must not trust in man’ (Spiritual and Ascetic Letters, 
edited by B. W. Randolph, pp. 45, 46, 47). 

The words do lead a life translate one word in the Greek, 
and that word sets the keynote for the whole section extending 
to 2:18. Elsewhere in the New Testament it is found only 
in Acts 23:1. Originally it meant ‘to live the life of a citizen, 
or a member of a community’; but eventually it lost this 
original sense and came to mean simply ‘to live.’ At the 
time when Paul was writing, however, some trace at least of 
the original meaning seems to survive whenever the word is 
used. In our present passage the verb probably bears its full 
original sense, which would accord well with the context. See 
3:20, where the cognate noun is used. Polycarp, in his 
letter to the Philippians, combines the expression here used 
by Paul with an expression from 2 Tim. 2:12 to form a © 
sentence which Lightfoot renders thus: ‘If we perform our 
duties under him as simple citizens, he will promote us to a 
share of his sovereignty.’ 

The Apostle urges them to live a life that is worthy of the 
gospel of Christ. The gospel of Christ is the good news con- 
cerning him by believing which the Philippians had become 
members of the Christian commonwealth. It also sets a 
standard for them now that they have entered into the common- 
wealth ; and Paul urges them to live in a manner that is 
consistent with this standard, some of the requirements of 
which he sets forth in this paragraph. There are inscriptions 
extant which, using language similar to that employed here 
by the Apostle, speak of the persons commemorated in them 
as living lives worthy of their city or of their country. 

The rendering whether I come and see you or only hear of 
you in absence, Jet me know, etc., while it sets forth Paul’s 
meaning exactly, hides a striking irregularity in his method 
of expression. Quite literally what he says is: ‘in order that, 
whether having come and seen you or else remaining absent, 
I may hear the things concerning you.’ We should have 
expected him to say: ‘in order that, whether having come 
and seen you or else remaining absent and hearing about you, 
I may learn the things concerning you.’ We may, it is true, 

63 


v 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


regard the sentence as quite regular if we make the ‘ hearing’ 
apply to either contingency, interpreting it in one case to 
mean ‘to hear from you in person,’ and in the other case 
‘to hear from others about you.’ So Meyer interprets. 
But, as Ellicott points out, this explanation is precluded by the 
opposition between ‘ having seen you’ and ‘I may hear the 
things concerning you, which ‘seems too distinct to have 
been otherwise than specially intended.’ The irregularity is 
certainly present, but the meaning is not obscure. The 
turn which Paul gives to the sentence would seem to indicate 
that in his inmost heart he expected that in actual fact it 
would be a case of hearing about them rather than of seeing 
them face to face. To say the least, the words make it clear 
that he was far from being certain that acquittal would be 
his lot. There is revealed in them also his keen interest in 
his converts: he will learn all about the Philippians whether 
he comes to them or not. As Beet puts it, he ‘adds to his 
exhortation a motive, namely, his own attentive interest in 
them.’ 

Paul desires and expects to learn that they are standing 
firm in a common spirit; and in some participial clauses 
which follow these words he expands and defines this initial 
statement of his expectation. Lightfoot remarks that the 
idea of firmness or uprightness is prominent in the very verb 
here used; but seeing that the same verb is used in other 
places in the New Testament meaning simply ‘ to stand,’ it 
is more correct to say, as Ellicott, Vincent, and others do, that 
the idea of firmness comes from the context, though it must 
be admitted that the thought of firmness seems to be present 
every time Paul employs the verb. It is not possible to 
decide with certainty whether the metaphor in the present 
passage is that of soldiers standing firm in battle, or whether 
the figure is taken from the amphitheatre. Lightfoot accepts 
the latter alternative. ‘ Here,’ he says, ‘ the metaphor seems 
to be drawn rather from the combats of the Roman amphi- 
theatre. Like criminals or captives, the believers are con- 
demned to fight for their lives: against them are arrayed the 
ranks of worldliness and sin: only unflinching courage and 


64 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 27-30 


steady combination can win the victory against such odds.’ 
The language of ver. 30 would seem to support this view. 

The phrase in a common spirit—literally, ‘in one spirit ’"— 
has been variously interpreted. By some, spirit is interpreted 
as the Holy Spirit ; by others as the human spirit; and by 
others still as a disposition or temper. The last of these is 
the interpretation adopted in our translation. Each of the 
three meanings of spirit may be said, however, to contribute 
to the conception which the Apostle intends to convey by 
the phrase. In 1 Cor. 12: 13 and Eph. 2: 18 we have precisely 
the same expression, and in both cases the reference is obviously 
to the Holy Spirit. The word ‘spirit ’ (pneuma) also denotes 
the human spirit, ‘ the higher part of our immaterial nature, 
that in which the agency of the Holy Spirit is especially seen 
and felt’ (Ellicott). In the very next clause Paul speaks of 
the ‘soul’ (psyche), the seat of the sensations, affections, 
desires, and passions. From the fact that he mentions both 
spirit and soul it would appear that he is personifying the 
Christian community at Philippi. The Church is to act as if 
it possessed one preuma and one psyche. Looked at from 
this point of view, the spirit in our passage is the human spirit, 
or, more strictly, the spirit of the personified community. 
Paul, however, would not think of the spirit in this sense as 
something altogether apart from the Holy Spirit of God. 
‘Indeed,’ remarks Ellicott, ‘in most cases in the New Testa- 
ment it may be said that in the mention of the human pneuma 
some reference to the eternal Spirit may always be recognized.’ 
So here, where the community is personified, we may assume 
that the Holy Spirit is as definitely in the Apostle’s mind as 
in I Cor. 12:13 and Eph. 2:18. Now, this spirit of the 
community, in which the Holy Spirit is working, may well be 
thought of as the disposition of the community, so that they 
who interpret spirit here as disposition or temper (as is done 
in our translation) are fully justified. Thus the three meanings 
of spirit—the Holy Spirit, the human spirit, and a disposition 
or temper—all contribute to form the resultant conception 
that was in the Apostle’s mind when he wrote standing firm 
in one spirit. 

65 


THE EPISTLE. OF PAUL JO THE ‘PHILIPPIANS 


The Apostle continues his statement of what he would fain 
learn concerning them in the words: fighting side by side like 
one man for the faith of the gospel. The words fighting side 
by side translate one word in the Greek, a participle which 
literally means ‘contending together with.’ The verb—a 
compound—occurs also in 4:3, and nowhere else in the 
New Testament. The simple verb occurs once—in 2 Tim. 
2:5-—in the sense of ‘contending in the games.’ It can, 
however, be used of the contest of war as well as of the games. 
Here, seemingly, it is the encounters of the arena that are in 
Paul’s mind, as in the rest of the paragraph, but the more 
serious and bloody contests rather than the merely spectacular 
and competitive. The Philippian Christians are like a group 
standing in the arena, surrounded by wily, fierce antagonists. 

‘Contending together with ’—together with whom ? Some 
say together with Paul; but it is far more probable, as being 
more in harmony with the context, that the meaning is 
‘ together with each other,’ or, as our translation has it, fighting 
side by side. Paul expects to hear, not merely of their standing 
firm, but of their standing firm fighting. To fight is one of the 
conditions of standing firm. When we cease to fight we are 
bound to fall. 

The words rendered like one man literally mean ‘ with one 
soul.’ We have just seen that the soul (psyche) is the seat of 
the sensations, affections, desires, and passions. Paul is still 
personifying the Christian community at Philippi. The 
members are not only to have one spirit (pxeuma) : they are to 
fight side by side with one soul (psyche). Chrysostom, Theodore 
of Mopsuestia, and some of the best of the ancient versions 
join the words ‘ with one soul,’ not with fighting side by side, 
but with standing firm. It is, however, better in every way, 
with almost all modern scholars, to take them with fighting 
side by side. Compare Acts 4:32, where we are told that 
‘there was but one heart and soul among the multitude of 
the believers.’ 

It is not surprising that the unity of the early Christian 

ommunities should so persistently be threatened, or that 
the Apostle should deem it necessary to foster it by frequent 
66 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 27-30 


and emphatic exhortation. ‘Consider the case of these 
early converts. What varieties of training had formed their 
characters, what prejudices of diverse races and religions con- 
tinued to be active in their minds! Consider also what a world 
of new truths had burst upon them. It was impossible they 
could at once take in all these in their just proportions. 
Various aspects of things would strike different minds, and 
difficulty must needs be felt about the reconciliation of them. 
In addition to theory, practice opened a field of easy diver- 
gence. Church life had to be developed, and Church work 
had to be done. Rules and precedents were lacking. Every- 
thing had to be planned and built from the foundation’ 
(Rainy, Expositor’s Bible, p. 82). 

The rendering for the faith of the gospel agrees with the text 
of the R.V. as against the margin, which has ‘ with the faith 
of the gospel’; according to the latter rendering Paul is 
personifying the faith of the gospel, and urging the Philippians 
to assist the faith in its struggle against opposing forces. 
‘Striving in concert with the faith’ is the translation of 
Lightfoot, who adopts this interpretation. Analogous instances 
of personification in the New Testament are supposed to 
lend support to this way of taking the words, such as, for 
example, the personification of ‘truth’ in 1 Cor. 13:6 and 
3 John 8, and of the ‘ gospel’ in 2 Tim. 1:8. But no such 
personification of ‘ faith ’ as Lightfoot finds here has been found 
elsewhere ; and his interpretation misses the emphasis which 
Paul is laying here, and throughout the paragraph, on the 
necessity of co-operation with each other on the part of the 
Philippians. The interpretation adopted in our translation 
is that of most modern scholars. It is for the faith of the gospel 
that the Apostle exhorts his readers to fight. 

What are we to understand by the faith of the gospel? 
Here only does the phrase occur. It surely must mean more 
than ‘ the teaching of the gospel,’ which is Lightfoot’s inter- 
pretation. It means the faith that has resulted from the 
preaching of the good news concerning Christ. The most 
vital consequence of its proclamation was the trust produced 
thereby in the Christ proclaimed. This trust was the heart 

67 


THE EPISTLESOF, PAUL TO THE, PHILIPPIANS 


and centre of the experience and life engendered by the 
acceptance of the good news, and it was not unnatural that 
‘trust’ or ‘ faith’ should come to be used for the experience 
or life as a whole. ‘The Faith’ later became a technical 
expression for the whole content of the Christian religion, 
and it is by no means impossible that we have here an early 
sign of the tendency to use the word in that way. The very 
existence of the new religion at Philippi was at stake, and the 
Philippians must fight to preserve it. 

Moule and Hughes take the meaning here to be that the 
Philippians are to strive to win fresh adherents to the gospel. 
This is doubtless an essential element in all true fighting for 
the faith, but there is no reason for restricting the present 
reference to definite attempts to extend the bounds of the 
Christian community. There were other ways in which they 
could fight for the faith. 

28 Never be scared for a second by your opponents. The verb 
here used for ‘ to scare’ is extremely rare, occurring nowhere 
else in the Greek Bible. It was employed in reference to 
startled, shying horses. Paul is anxious that the Philippians 
should not lose their self-control before the onslaught of their 
opponents. In the notes on chap. 2:12 ff. the suggestion 
is made that in that portion of our epistle the Apostle is 
comparing and contrasting himself with Moses when he 
was giving his final injunctions to the children of Israel as 
described in the closing chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy ; 
and it is not impossible that already in the present passage 
Deuteronomy may have been in his mind, for the choice of 
the unusual verb may well be due to the fact that the injunc- 
tion of Moses in Deut. 31: 6—‘ nor be affrighted at them’ 
—employs a verb which means ‘ to tremble’ or ‘ to quiver.’ 
Was it the use by Paul of this particular verb that suggested 
to Trapp his reference to the horse in Job? ‘ He that feareth 
God,’ he comments, ‘need fear none else, Psalm 3. But 
with the horse in Job 39: 22, he mocketh at fear, and is not 
affrighted ; neither turneth he back from the sword.’ 

The Philippians are not to be scared for a second. What- 
ever happens, whatever their opponents may do, they must 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 27-30 


not for an instant permit themselves to be scared out of their 
calm, steady self-control. 

The word here used for ‘opponent’ is found also in 
Moke g13.517, 21 215, 1° Cor. 16 79,72 >Thessy 2%) 4°10 lim. 
5:14. Clearly the hostility with which Paul had had to 
contend at Philippi was still active against those who had 
believed through his ministry. See ver. 30. Just as the city 
of Philippi was a Roman colony surrounded by foes against 
whom it was ever on its guard, so the Christian community 
had to stand its ground against the enemies by whom it was 
encircled. These opponents were probably the heathen inhabi- 
tants of Philippi. The Jews were few; and as Paul had 
himself been opposed by the pagan inhabitants, we infer, 
on the basis of ver. 30, that the present opponents of the 
Philippian Christians were also pagan. Referring to Paul’s 
attitude to Jewish propaganda, Kennedy remarks that 
“when warning his readers against Jewish malice, what he 
usually fears is not that they will be terrified into compliance, 
but that they will be seduced from the right path.’ This 
consideration lends support to the view that in our present 
passage the Apostle has heathen opponents in mind. Kennedy 
also calls attention to the fact that the remains which have 
been discovered at Philippi would seem to show that the 
pagan inhabitants were ‘an extraordinarily devout community.’ 
Their very devoutness may have led them to persecute the 
Christians. Perhaps some of the latter were being forced 
into some sort of compromise by the threats of their antago- 
nists. It is evident that the Apostle does not regard the peril 
as negligible. 

Some writers identify the opponents here spoken of with 
the persons against whom Paul warns his readers in 3: 2 ff., 
but the suggestion is most improbable. We do not think that 
the verses in chap. 3 formed part of the original letter to the 
Philippians; and in any case the persons spoken of there 
are Jews, whereas the present opponents (as we have just 
seen) are the heathen inhabitants of the city. 

From the courageous steadfastness which the Apostle 
urges his readers to exhibit there will emanate a twofold result. 

69 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


Your fearlessness, he says, is a clear omen of ruin for them 
and of your own salvation—at the hands of God. In the 
Greek this is a relative clause: your fearlessness rightly 
interprets the relative pronoun. 

Their fearlessness is, first, a clear omen of ruin for them, 
that is, for their opponents. For them goes, not with ruin, 
but with the whole phrase, a clear omen of ruin. A clear omen 
translates one word in the Greek, a word not found in the 
New Testament outside the Pauline epistles, and in them 
only in Rom. 3: 25, 26, 2 Cor. 8: 24, and the present passage. 
It signifies a proof based upon the evidence of facts. The 
fearless behaviour of the Philippian Christians would be a fact 
which their opponents would not be able to ignore, whose 
evidence they would not be able to gainsay. 

An omen of ruin! The word ruin is the common New 
Testament expression for eternal perdition—the antithesis of 
salvation ; and inasmuch as the two words are contrasted in 
the present passage, it seems best to take them in their full 
sense of eternal perdition and eternal life. But how would the 
fearlessness of the Philippian Christians be for their opponents 
an omen of eternal perdition ? The opponents would recognize 
in their behaviour something superhuman, something which 
could only come from God, and so would see that they them- 
selves were pitted, not against a few helpless men and women, 
but against the very power of God. And what could be the 
issue of that but eternal perdition? The persecutors could 
reverse Paul’s great question in Rom. 8:31 and say: ‘If 
God is against us, who can be for us?’ Time and again in 
the story of the Christian Church the fearlessness of the 
persecuted has forced the persecutors into a recognition of 
the utter hopelessness of their own position. The candle lit by 
the martyrs has oftentimes revealed to their torturers that the 
path they were treading was one that led to eternal perdition. 

Their fearless attitude would also be an omen of your own 
salvation. It has frequently been remarked that here we 
should have expected ‘ but to you of salvation,’ to correspond 
with the preceding clause. That is what we actually find in 
the A.V. ; and it cannot be denied that the best-attested text 


7oO 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 27-30 


seems at first sight to be lacking insymmetry. It is, however, 
as a matter of fact the more probable text. Paul is speaking 
of the influence exerted by the demeanour of the Philippian 
Christians upon their persecuting opponents, and after saying 
that it will be to them an omen of eternal ruin, he adds 
(possibly more or less as an afterthought) that it would also 
reveal to them that the persons whom they were persecuting 
were on the path that leads to eternal salvation. The perse- 
cutors would see that God was against themselves and at 
the same time recognize that He was on the side of the Christian 
believers. The spirit in which Stephen endured his martyrdom 
had been for Paul himself a token of his own perilous position, 
and of Stephen’s salvation, while the spirit of One greater 
than Stephen had constrained the army-captain who stood 
by his cross to say: ‘ This man was certainly a son of God’ 
(Mark 15: 39). 

The words at the hands of God, as the punctuation of our 
translation makes clear, do not go closely with your own 
salvation. It is the omen supplied to the persecutors by the 
fearlessness of the Christians that is from God. The evidence 
furnished by their behaviour is a gift from God to those who 
are persecuting them. 

For on behalf of Christ you have the favour of suffering no 29 
less than of believing in him. This is an explanation of the 
statement just made, that the clear omen was God’s gift to 
the persecutors. It was the fearlessness of the Christians 
that furnished the omen, and the omen was God’s gift inasmuch 
as the suffering that occasioned the fearlessness was His gift 
to the Christians. When He gave to the Christians the gift 
of suffering on behalf of Chnst, He was also at the same time 
giving to their opponents the double token—the token of 
their own perdition and of the Christians’ salvation. The 
one gift involved the other. 

To connect this verse closely with the immediately preceding 
words in this way is more natural than to connect it (as do 
some) with the words never be scared, as if Paul were saying, 
‘Do not be alarmed at the prospect of suffering, for suffering 
is a gift from God to you.’ 


71 


FHE EPISTLESOF PAUL TOVTRESPHILIPPIANS 


Paul’s statement literally rendered would run: ‘the 
favour of suffering was granted to you.’ Note the past tense : 
the gift was graciously bestowed upon them when first they 
believed. It is, of course, still in their possession, but it 
would have been nearer to the Apostle’s actual words to 
render: ‘you have received the favour of suffering.’ 

The favour of suffering was involved in the gift of faith. 
Some expositors appear to understand Paul to mean that 
God had meted out for the Philippian Christians a certain 
share of suffering which they were bound to endure; but 
such a view is too mechanical. What Paul means is that when 
God bestowed on them the gift of the new life, He gave them 
something that was sure to come into collision with the evil 
world, and at the same time a spirit that would not flinch 
whatever consequences their defiance might entail. The gift 
is a gracious favour because it makes possible the fearlessness 
which is God’s own omen for the persecutors. He provided the 
material, so to say, out of which the Christians themselves 
had to fashion His token. He furnished the gold which they 
were to mint into coins bearing His image and circulating for 
His glory. 

They were called to suffer on behalf of Christ, that is, to 
help forward his cause and to enhance his glory in the eyes 
ofmen. The New Testament not infrequently speaks of suffer- 
ing for his cause as an honour and a privilege. Compare 
Acts 5:41: ‘ The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that 
they had been considered worthy of suffering dishonour 
for the sake of the Name.’ See also Rom. 5: 3 and Col. 1: 24. 
The same attitude to suffering has illumined the dark story 
of persecution ever since. In his letter to Magdalen Pica, 
Countess of Mirandola, on the subject of her purpose to enter 
the Order of St. Clare, Savonarola says of the saints and the 
‘religious’: ‘So possessed are they by love of him that for 
his sake no toil is heavy, no adversity is bitter; nay, they 
do count it honour and hold it in high esteem if they are 
able to suffer even in some small degree for his sake who for 
them deigned to die upon the Cross” (Spirttual and Ascetic 
Letters, p. 12). Trapp here quotes the saying of Careless, the 


72 


CHAPTER I, VERSES 27-30 


martyr: ‘Such an honour it is as the greatest angel in heaven 
is not permitted to have. God forgive me mine unthank- 
fulness.’ 

There is some emphasis on the word you, as if Paul were 
contrasting the Christians with their opponents in the matter 
of privilege. His readers might be tempted to envy their 
persecutors, but the believers, harassed and oppressed as they 
were, were the truly favoured ones—the fortunate and privi- 
leged recipients of God’s great gift of suffering. 

In the Greek, the Apostle, before actually mentioning the 
suffering, stops abruptly in the middle of the sentence in order 
to introduce the words rendered no less than of believing in 
him, so eager is he to emphasize the inevitable connexion 
between their suffering and their faith; the gift of suffering 
is not an isolated boon: it is involved in the gift of faith; 
when God gave the latter gift, he of necessity gave also the 


former. Note the conception of faith as a gift of God’s 
grace. 


The Greek is here somewhat irregular, but our translation 30 
is certainly right in taking the clause as a description of the 
way in which the Philippians suffer—by waging the same 
conflict that, as once you saw and now you hear, I wage myself. 
The word rendered conflict originally signified a contest in the 
arena, whether gladiatorial or athletic, and that sense of 
the word would seem to be in the Apostle’s mind here. In 
I Thess. 2 : 2 Paul uses the very same word of his experience 
at Thessalonica. The Christians are pictured as standing in 
the arena, pitted against deadly foes. Theirs is ‘the same 
sort of conflict ’as Paul himself is waging! It is not necessary 
to infer from these words that the Philippian Christians were 
in custody, as Paul had been at Philippi and now was in 
Ephesus. It is the same sort of conflict, even though it 
may not be identical with hisin form. How the thought would 
enhearten his readers! They could magnify Christ by their 
sufferings as he was doing by his! 

As once you saw—that is, at Philippi. The conflict to 
which these words refer is recorded with fullness in Acts 16. 
Moule observes that one of the probable recipients of our 


73 


x 


2 


&) 


4 


I 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TOURHE VPRILIPPIANS 


epistle, namely the jailer, had not only seen Paul’s sufferings, 
but had also himself inflicted some of them. 

And now you hear: this refers to his present conflict waged 
in Ephesus, news of which would reach the Philippians through 
the present letter (which would be read in their assembly), 
through Epaphroditus the bearer of the letter, and doubtless 
through others also. Paul regards his experiences at Philippi 
and at Ephesus as aspects of the same conflict. All the 
varied struggles of Christian history are items of the one great 
conflict. 


CHAPTER II 


AN EXHORTATION TO HARMONY AND SELF-ABNEGATION 
(II. I-4) 


So by all the stimulus of Christ, by every incentive of love, 
by all your participation in the Spirit, by all your affec- 
tionate tenderness, I pray you to give me the utter joy 
of knowing you are living in harmony, with the same 
feelings of love, with one heart and soul, never acting 
for private ends or from vanity, but humbly considering 
each other the better man, and each with an eye to the 
interests of others as well as to his own. 


The utter absence of severity of censure in this exhortation 
shows that the dissensions and disputes at Philippi had not 
yet reached an acute stage. The frequency and the urgency 
of the Apostle’s appeals, however, imply that the danger of 
serious disruption was real. Paul’s concern reveals itself in 
the elaborate fourfold adjuration with which the present 
paragraph opens. 

In the statement of the last of the four grounds of appeal 
(that is, in the last clause of ver. 1) the Greek text in the best 
authorities exhibits an almost incredible breach of concord. 
All the uncial manuscripts as well as many of the cursives 
have this palpable grammatical error! The R.V. renders 
the clause literally: ‘if (there are) any tender mercies and 


74 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 1-4 


compassions.’ The word rendered ‘ tender mercies ’ is (in the 
Greek) a neuter plural noun, and the word ‘ compassions’ a 
masculine plural noun; but the word ‘any’ (which should 
agree in gender and number with the noun with which it 
goes) does not agree with either of these, being masculine or 
feminine singular ; it does not agree in any respect with the 
noun ‘tender mercies’ to which it stands in immediate 
proximity! This strange perpetuation of a manifest inac- 
curacy bears witness to the unthinking fidelity of the early 
scribes. A conjecture suggested independently by Haupt 
and Kennedy and endorsed by James Hope Moulton seems to 
restore the original text. In the text as restored by this 
conjecture Paul, with impressive repetition, says with regard 
to each of the four bases of his appeal: ‘if it has any force, 
if it carries any weight, I pray you,’ etc. Our translation is 
an excellent rendering of the restored text. 

There exists among expositors a lack of agreement on the 
question whether the four grounds on which Paul bases his 
appeal represent four things which should create in the hearts 
of the Philippians a considerate attitude towards the Apostle 
and his entreaty, or four things which should make them 
kindly disposed towards each other. On a priori grounds we 
should have expected the Apostle to base his appeal upon the 
things calculated to foster kindly feelings among the Philip- 
pians themselves, rather than upon the things calculated to 
make them considerate in their attitude to him and his petition ; 
and yet he expresses his appeal in ver. 2 (‘ fulfil ye my joy,’ 
R.V.) in a way that would seem to favour the latter view. On 
the whole we incline to the view, held by the Greek Fathers, 
that the four adjurations present four grounds of appeal for 
considerateness towards himself; and we shall interpret the 
appeals from that point of view, without, however, ignoring 
the other possibility. It goes without saying that, though 
the Apostle puts the appeal in the form of a request for the 
fulfilment of his joy, it is not his joy that he is concerned 
about, but the harmony among the Philippians that would 
complete his joy in them. His real appeal is for unity and 
harmony. 


75 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL T0 THE PHILIPPIANS 


The four clauses which express the four grounds of appeal 
are capable of being interpreted in an almost bewildering 
variety of ways ; it will not be possible for us to do much more 
than select and state in each case the interpretation which 
seems to us to conform with the mind of the Apostle. 

(a) By all the stimulus of Christ. The word rendered 
stimulus may mean ‘consolation’ (A.V.), ‘comfort’ (R.V.), 
‘encouragement,’ ‘exhortation.’ The last of these is, we 
think, the meaning intended here. Paul has in mind the 
exhortation which he is now addressing to the Philippians. 
It is an exhortation ‘in Christ’; Christ is the sphere in which 
it is addressed; it is prompted by his spirit. If, says the 
Apostle, such an exhortation has any force, if it carries any 
influence with you, let it lead you to fulfil my joy by being 
united among yourselves. The constant use in the Pauline 
epistles of the cognate verb in the sense of ‘I exhort’ or ‘I 
beseech’ (see, for example, Rom. 12:1, 15: 30, 16:17; 
x Cor. 1:10, 4:16, 16:15; Eph. 4:1; and especially 4:2 
of our epistle) supports the adoption of ‘ exhortation ’ as the 
meaning of the noun in the present passage. 

(6) By every incentive of love. The word translated incen- 
tive occurs here only in the New Testament, and is not very 
far removed in meaning from the word ‘ exhortation ’ in the 
preceding clause. Persuasion, appeal, exhortation, consola- 
tion, incentive—these are its meanings. Paul is referring 
still, we think, to the appeal which he is addressing to his 
readers—an appeal that springs from his love to them. If 
such an appeal has any influence with them, let them do its 
bidding. Surely love’s appeal cannot go unheeded! | 

(c) By all your participation in the Spirit. Literally, ‘ if 
fellowship of spirit (means) anything.’ This our translation 
interprets to mean ‘if the fact that you all participate in the 
same Holy Spirit means anything.’ This may well be Paul’s 
meaning, in which case he appeals to the Philippians on the 
ground of their common Christian life. A community whose 
members are all inspired by the same Spirit should surely be 
free from disputes and dissensions. If this is the meaning 
of the clause, the nature of Paul’s appeal is now changed. 


76 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 1-4 


Hitherto, if our interpretation of the preceding ciauses is 
correct, he has based his request on the natuie of the appeal 
which he is able to address to his readers, whereas now he 
appeals on the ground of his readers’ coimron experience. 
It is possible, however, that he still has in mind the mutual 
relation of himself and his readers, in which case his woids 
mean ‘ by all our participation in the Spirit,’ the appeal being 
based on the tact that he and they together share in the same 
life of the Spirit. Because of this common participation an 
appeal from him should have force with them. 

(2) By all your affectionate tenderness. Affectionate 
tenderness represents two nouns in the Greek, which the A.V. 
renders by ‘ bowels and mercies,’ arid the R.V. by ‘ tender 
mercies and compassions.’ ‘The former of the two is the same 
word that is rendered ‘ affection ’ in 1: 8, where the A.V. has 
‘bowels’ as here. See the note there. The second ot the 
two nouns conveys the idea of pity to a greater degree than 
does the first. Here, as in the preceding clauses, the precise 
reference of the words is in doubt. It may be that the 
Apostle is appealing to the affectionate tenderness that 
should be operative among the members of the Philippian 
Church, binding them together and making dissension and 
disruption impossible. Or he may mean the affectionate 
tenderness which they should manifest towards him, the 
disposition that would make it impossible for them to turn a 
deaf ear to his entreaty. It may be urged as an objection to 
this last interpretation that a man of Paul’s temper would 
never appeal to the pity otf his readers; but we must not be 
too certain that he is not doing so here ; tor the way in which 
he heaps up his grounds of appeal betokens an earnestness 
that would not hesitate to appeal even to their pity. It is 
possible, however, that Paul is thinking of his own affec- 
tionate tenderness towards them from which, as trom his love, 
his appeal proceeds. Surely the thought of his affectionate 
pity could not fail to move thei. 

Whatever be the exact force of the four clauses in ver. I, 
there can be no question of the Apostle’s intense earnestness. 
He entreats his readers to ‘ fulfil his joy by being of the same 


77 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


mind.’ I pray you—so his words run in our translation—to 
give me the utter joy of knowing you are living in harmony. 
The Philippians are already a source of joy to him. He has 
told them in 1: 4 that he always prays for them ‘ with a sense 
of joy’; and in 4:1 he addresses them as his ‘joy and 
crown. Still, his joy in them is not complete: an arc of the 
circle of his joy is wanting. He urges them to complete the 
circle—to fulfil the joy they are capable of affording him. 
This they can do by living in harmony among themselves. 
Their factiousness robs him of a portion of his due joy in them. 
It is not his own joy, as we have seen, that the Apostle is con- 
cerned about. As Calvin puts it, ‘he felt small anxiety for 
himself, if but the Church of Christ might prosper’ (quoted 
by Moule). The reason he frames his request in the way he 
does is that it thus furnishes for his readers an additional 
motive, reminding them that by living in harmony they 
would be perfecting his joy in them. There is something 
sublime in Paul’s joy in his converts. To another Macedonian 
Church he writes: ‘ How can I render thanks enough to God 
for you, for all the joy you make me feel in the presence of our 
God ?’ (x Thess. 3 : 9). 

It is the utter joy of knowing that they are living in harmony, 
or, to render the words literally, ‘ thinking the same thing,’ 
that the Apostle seeks. The very same expression is used in 
4:2, where Paul entreats Euodia and Syntyche to ‘ agree’ in 
the Lord. The phrase means more than to hold in common a 
particular opinion ; it refers rather to unity of sentiment and 
feeling ; so that our translation is justified when it renders 
living in harmony. The verb that is used in the phrase is 
found also in 1: 7, in the Greek that underlies the words ‘ to 
be thinking of you all.’ See the note there. It is interesting 
to find the very expression used in the present passage em- 
ployed in a touching epitaph of a married couple (from Rhodes, 
2nd century B.c.) which runs as follows: ‘Saying the same 
things and thinking the same things, we have come the long 
way to Hades.’ 

Paul adds with the same feelings of love. Love, mutual and 
equal, is to inhabit and actuate every heart in the Church. 


78 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 1-4 


With one heart and soul. This phrase represents Greek words 
which literally mean “ sharing the same soul (psyche), thinking 
the one thing.’ ‘Sharing the same soul’ renders just one 
word, an adjective which occurs here only in the New Testa- 
ment. It takes us back to the words “like one man’ in I: 27. 
We there saw that the psyche is the seat of the sensations, 
affections, desires, and passions ; and we suggested that Paul 
was personifying the community. Here he seems to revert to 
that personification. The Philippian Church is to share one 
psyche. It is not to be divided up into groups, each having, 
as it were, its own separate soul. And the members are to 
‘think the one thing.” We saw a moment ago that the words 
living in harmony in the present verse mean literally ‘ think- 
ing the same thing.’ Paul now, in the earnestness of his soul, 
repeats the phrase in a slightly stronger form—‘ thinking the 
one thing.’ His desire is not that they should hold in common 
a particular opinion, but rather that one sentiment should 
pervade the whole community. The Apostle is concerned to 
produce among the Philippians not a uniformity in belief and 
opinion, but rather a unity of spirit and sentiment. 

In the words never acting for private ends the Apostle con- 
tinues his statement of the life he desires them to live. The 
R.V. has ‘ doing nothing through faction.’ No participle is 
expressed in the Greek : it is left to the reader to supply one. 
Some scholars are of the opinion that the participle to be 
supplied is not ‘ doing ’ (as in the R.V., and as is implied in 
our translation), but ‘thinking’ or ‘ being mindful of,’ as 
the last clause of ver. 2 would seem to suggest. Some, indeed, 
refuse to supply a participle at all, preferring to regard these 
opening words of ver. 3 as an imperative: ‘nothing for 
private ends!’ The context, however, shows that a participle 
is to be supplied. In any case there is no ambiguity in the 
meaning. Nothing is to be done for private ends! Paul 
employs here the very noun which he uses in the phrase ‘ for 
their own ends’ in 1:17, where he is describing the motives 
of the preachers whom he condemns. As was observed in the 
note on 1:17, the context must in each occurrence determine 
the exact significance of the noun. ‘ The word,’ says Moule, 


79 


THE EPISTLE OR CPAULSIO*LAENPAILIPPIANGS 


‘may denote not merely the combined self-seeking of partisan- 
ship, but also a solitary ambition, working by intrigue.’ It 
is the latter meaning that is adopted in our translation, but 
seeing that Paul is here deprecating factiousness and pleading 
for unity, the former would be the more suitable meaning. 
In other words, ‘ party ends’ would bring out the Apostle’s 
meaning more exactly than private ends. The advantage 
of party is never to be a motive for action. The interests of a 
section of the community should never be allowed to override 
the interests of the community as a whole. 

The preposition used with the noun in the present passage 
is not the same as that used with the same noun in 1:17; here 
the very preposition shows that what Paul is deprecating is 
the pursuit of party ends as a rule or principle of conduct: 
nothing is to be done ‘ according to’ or ‘ by way of’ party 
ends. The comprehensiveness of the injunction should be 
noticed : the Philippians are never to find their motive in party 
interest. How different would have been the story of the 
Christian Church if this precept had furnished for Christians 
a universal rule! Paul could see before his very eyes, as 
1:17 shows, the evil results of factiousness: small wonder 
that he charges the Philippians to renounce utterly the spirit 
of faction. Ignatius echoes the very words of Paul when 
he says to the Philadelphians: ‘ I beseech you to do nothing 
for party ends, but (to do all things) in accordance with the 
teaching of Christ ’ (chap. 8). 

Another motive for action is deprecated by the Apostle in 
the words or from vanity. Here only does the noun occur 
in the New Testament, but the corresponding adjective is 
used in Gal. 5:26. Both the A.V. and the R.V. render the 
noun by ‘vainglory.” Like the English word ‘ vanity,’ 
the Greek word etymologically suggests a conceit that is 
hollow, groundless, pretentious. Personal conceit, as well as 
partisanship, is condemned as a motive and principle of 
action. Factiousness and vanity—these were the evils that 
menaced the Christian community at Philippi. The former 
is often the bane of active, vigorous Churches. 

The spirit which the Apostle would fain see flourishing 

80 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 1-4 


among the Philippians is set forth in the remaining words of 
this paragraph. After his warning against partisanship and 
vanity he proceeds: but humbly considering each other the 
better man. This is the opposite of vanity. Instead of 
humbly, both the A.V. and the R.V. have ‘in lowliness of 
mind.’ The noun which they thus render occurs seven times 
in the New Testament, the R.V. renderings varying between 
lowliness, lowliness of mind, and humility. There enters into 
the formation of the noun (just as ‘low’ enters into the 
formation of ‘lowliness’) an adjective which in classical 
Greek connotes abject self-abasement. In the New Testa- 
ment, however, it is entirely free from any suggestion of 
meanness. The exaitation of the adjective and its derivatives 
and cognates in the New Testament answers to the exaltation 
of the virtue itself by Christianity. Paul is not here demand- 
ing on the part of the Philippians a state of mind that is 
abject and servile. Christian humility is a due sense of one’s 
own unworthiness, a disposition that recognizes in oneself 
room for improvement, a readiness to see and to rejoice in the 
goodin others. Paul asks them toconsider each other the better 
man. ‘This explains,’ says Plummer, ‘what is meant by 
humblemindedness. The Christian knows that he has many 
defects and failings which are unknown to his fellows, and 
which he has no right to suppose that they have. On the 
other hand, he sees in them virtues which he knows that he 
does not possess.’ Wesley, in one of his many letters to 
Thomas Wride, the eccentric preacher, complains of his lack 
of the very spirit which Paul here urges his readers to cultivate. 
‘Alas! alas!’ writes Wesley, ‘you have now confirmed 
beyond all contradiction what many of our preachers, as 
many as have had any intercourse with you, alleged concerning 
you! Iam persuaded, had I read your last letter (that of the 
17th inst.) at the Conference, condemning, with such exquisite 
bitterness and self-sufficiency, men so many degrees better 
than yourself, the whole Conference, as one man, would have 
disclaimed all connexion with you. I know not what to do. 
You know not what spirit you are of. Therefore there is smail 
hope of cure. I have no heart to send you anywhere. You 
81 


THE (EPISTLE, OFM PAUL CLOSPAE MPHIL EE aves 


have neither lowliness nor love. What can I say or do more!’ 
(Letters, p. 190). 

4 Just as the last clause of ver. 3 refers to the grace that is 
the opposite of vanity, so it is possible to regard ver. 4—and each 
with an eye to the interests of others as well as to his own— 
as pointing to the spirit that is the antithesis of partisanship, 
for, according to what appears to be the true text, the Apostle 
twice employs in this verse the word each in the plural; and 
this plural (of which there is no other instance in the New 
Testament) is capable of being explained as a reference to 
the various groups into which the Church at Philippi was 
divided. This interpretation, however, is exposed to some 
serious objections, of which one is that it makes Paul sanction, 
not only the continued existence of these groups in the Church, 
but even the right of each group to consider its own interests ! 
So we prefer to take the plural as the plural of emphasis, 
giving the meaning ‘each and all.’ Every single member 
is to have at heart the interests of the other members as well 
as his own. The Apostle does not prohibit interest in one’s 
own affairs; it is selfish preoccupation with one’s own affairs 
that he condemns. We must love our neighbour—as ourselves. 

Some commentators interpret this verse in a way that 
brings it into closer harmony with the last clause of ver. 3. 
According to their interpretation Paul speaks, not of the 
interests of others, but of the ‘ good qualities ’ of others, urging 
his readers to be on the outlook for the virtues of their fellow- 
members. While this interpretation is possible, it does 
not suit Paul’s language as well as the one adopted in our 
translation, for the Greek participle underlying the words 
with an eye to connotes the idea of aim or object; and the 
Apostle is more likely to have spoken of the tnterests of their 
fellow-members as an object for his readers to aim at than 
of their virtues. Unselfishness is the one and only guarantee 
of unity. Where selfishness exists, harmony is impossible. 


THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST (II. 5-11) 


5 Treat one another with the same spirit as you experience in 
6 Christ Jesus. Though he was divine by nature, he did 
82 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 5-11 


not snatch at equality with God but emptied himself 
by taking the nature of a servant ; born in human guise 
and appearing in human form, he humbly stooped in his 
obedience even to die, and to die upon the cross. Therefore 
God raised him high and conferred on him a Name above 
all names, so that before the Name of Jesus every knee 
should bend in heaven, on earth, and underneath the earth, 
and every tongue confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord,’ to 
the glory of God the Father. 


In order to give greater force to the entreaty which he has 
just addressed to his readers, the Apostle sets before them the 
example of their Lord. Compare Rom. 15: 3 and 2 Cor. 8: 9. 
In our endeavour to arrive at the correct interpretation of the 
present passage we must ever bear in mind that it is intro- 
duced for a practical purpose. At the same time the passage 
reveals an exact balance of clauses (see Moffatt, Introduction 
to the Literature of the N.T., p. 167), which seems to point to 
careful construction. It is not impossible that Paul is making 
use of the words of some early poem or hymn. 

The paragraph presents as many and as great difficulties 
as perhaps any passage in the epistles of St. Paul. ‘The 
diversity of opinion prevailing among interpreters,’ says 
Bruce, ‘is enough to fill the student with despair, and to 
afflict him with intellectual paralysis’ (Humiultation of 
Christ, p. 8). 

Before we consider the verses sertatim let us glance at the 
question whether or not the passage speaks of the pre-existent 
Christ. Does the Apostle, or does he not, carry back the 
example of Christ to his pre-incarnate state? In the opinion 
of some interpreters the paragraph is concerned solely with 
the example afforded by the life of the historical Christ, and 
it must be admitted that this is a quite possible, and in some 
ways attractive, interpretation. If, however, with Westcott 
and Hort, the R.V., and the majority of interpreters, we take 
the clause born in human guise closely with the words that 
precede it, and so make it a part of the description of the way 
in which Christ Jesus emptied himself, this interpretation is 


83 


7 
8 


THE EPISTLE OF “PAUCL, TOCVLAESEHILIEEL Awe 


impossible, for in that case the self-emptying is clearly regarded 
as the outcome of a pre-incarnate volition. 

Whether we take that particular clause with the words 
which precede or with those which follow, the probability is 
that the passage embraces the pre-incarnate as well as the 
incarnate life of Christ. This is the opinion of Lipsius, 
Dibelius, and almost all recent English writers. See Light- 
foot’s reasons for adopting this view (Philippians, pp. 131, 132). 
There are several passages in Paul’s letters which point to his 
belief in the pre-existence of Christ. In Rom. 8:3 and 
Gal. 4: 4 he speaks of God ‘ sending ’ His Son; and in 2 Cor. 
8:9 he employs language which makes it clear that in his 
view the pre-existence was not merely ideal, but real and 
actual. The pre-existent Christ was possessed of the power 
of thought and will. ‘The only pre-existence in which 
apostolic writers are interested is not ideal but real and per- 
sonal. The love which entered history in Jesus could come 
only through a personal channel’ (Mackintosh, Doctrine of 
the Person of Christ, p. 447). 

This conception of a personal pre-existence teems with 
difficulties ; but into these it is evident that we cannot now 
attempt to enter. The inadequacy of the term ‘ person’ is 
obvious (see Mackintosh, of. cit., p. 452), and the fact that we 
are compelled to think in terms of time affects all our thought. 
Nor is it part of our present task to inquire how the Apostle 
arrived at his conception of the pre-existent Christ. We may 
be sure that a vital factor in the formation of his thought was 
his own experience of the Risen Lord. He who had come to 
mean so much to him surely did not begin to exist when Jesus 
was born in Bethlehem. Nor need we hesitate to believe that 
Paul was influenced by Jewish and Alexandrian speculations. 

5 Treat one another with the same spirit as you experience in 
Christ Jesus. The very novelty of this rendering may repel 
some readers, for it is so utterly different from the familiar 
renderings of the A.V. and the R.V. And yet it is almost cer- 
tainly correct. This way of taking the verse is adopted by 
Deissmann, Lipsius, Dibelius, Kennedy, Jones, Hughes, and 
others. The words of the Apostle. literally rendered, are: 


84 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 5-11 


‘Think this in (or, among) yourselves which also in Christ 
Jesus.’ No verb is actually expressed in the relative clause. 
Both the A.V. and the R.V. supply the verb ‘ was.’ But the 
verb that most naturally suggests itself is that which is found 
in the first part of the verse. When we supply this verb we 
get: ‘think among yourselves that which also you think in 
Christ Jesus.” The word ‘ think ’ is the word we have already 
met in 1: 7 and 2: 2 and which occurs again several times in 
chaps. 3 and 4. It connotes more than mere thought. The 
action of the heart is embraced within its meaning as well as 
that of the head. It speaks of sympathetic interest and care. 
Paul’s injunction, then, means: ‘have among yourselves the 
disposition which is yours in Christ Jesus’; ‘show among 
yourselves the spirit you experience in him’; or, as our 
translation has it, treat one another with the same spirit as 
you experience in Christ Jesus. He urges them to put into 
practice in the life of the Christian community the spirit 
engendered in their hearts by communion with Christ. One 
advantage which this interpretation has over the old is that 
it enables us to give to the phrase in Christ Jesus its customary 
Pauline significance, namely, ‘in living union with the Risen 
Christ.’ 

Now comes the statement of the great example. Though 
he was divine by nature, he did not snatch at equality with 
God—so it opens. It will help us if we place side by side with 
this rendering those of the A.V. and the R.V. The former 
has: ‘ who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery 
to be equal with God’; and the latter: ‘who, being in the 
form of God, counted it not a prize to be onan equality with 
God.’ The participial clause which is literally rendered in both 
versions (‘ being in the form of God’) is rightly construed in 
our translation as having a concessive force (though he was), 
for the simple and natural implication of the words is, as 
Lipsius observes, that the lofty state here predicated of the 
Christ might well have allured him into that very path upon 
which, according to the next clause, he refused to enter. 

The participle translated ‘ being’ in the A.V. and the R.V. 
is not from the ordinary Greek verb ‘to be.’ In classical 


85 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE FRILIPPIANS 


Greek the participle would mean ‘ being by nature,’ or, as the 
R.V. margin renders, ‘ being originally.’ In later Greek, 
however, the verb frequently means no more than simply ‘ to 
be,’ and it is precarious to say (as does Plummer) that the 
participle itself ‘points clearly to the pre-existence of 
Christ.’ Nor does Gifford (Incarnation, pp. 11-21) succeed 
in showing that the participle implies that Christ continued 
‘in the form of God’ even after he had emptied himself. 

The Greek word translated ‘form’ in the A.V. and the 
R.V.—morphe—is found elsewhere in the New Testament 
only in Mark 16:12. In our translation the word ‘ form’ is 
used—in ver. 8—to render a different Greek word (schema). 
Lightfoot (pp. 127-33) has a long detached note in which he 
discusses the meanings of these two Greek words. He traces 
the meaning of morphé in the earlier and later philosophers, 
but as the word undoubtedly came to be used in a loose, 
popular sense, it is now very generally felt that in the attempt 
to arrive at its precise significance in the present clause not 
much is gained by tracing its philosophical history. At the 
same time it seems certain that the word ‘ always signifies a 
form which truly and fully expresses the being which under- 
lies it’ (Kennedy). Moulton and Milligan ( Vocabulary, p. 417) 
quote passages from the papyri which support this statement, 
and Lightfoot’s examination of the use in the Pauline epistles 
of compounds in which the word we are discussing forms 
an element would seem to show that the Apostle recognized 
this significance of the word (pp. 130, 131). Though the word 
does not actually mean nature, yet a thing cannot be said 
to be in the morphé of another unless it possesses the essential 
qualities of that other. All this goes to show that the render- 
ing of our translation—though he was divine by nature— 
represents the meaning of the clause, especially as the participle 
may not be without some tinge of its classical meaning, 
‘being by nature.’ ‘He was in nature essentially Divine’, 
is Findlay’s paraphrase of the clause (Epistles of Paul the 
Apostle, p. 199); and Mackintosh says regarding our para- 
graph: ‘It is asserted—and on the assertion hinges the 
thrilling moral appeal of the passage—that before he came as 

86 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 5-11 


man, Christ’s life was Divine in quality; not merely Like 
God, but participant in His essential attributes’ (op. c#t., p. 
67). With the description of Christ in this clause compare 
2eCore 41:4, Colt 0:35,.10,, Heb:..1 2.3. 

Though the pre-existent Christ was thus divine by nature, 
he did not, says the Apostle, snatch at equality with God. We 
can best examine this statement by considering separately 
the following two questions: (a) What are we to understand 
by equality with God ? (6) What does the clause say regarding 
the attitude of Christ Jesus towards this equality with God ? 

(a) What are we to understand by equality with God ? 
Is being equal with God synonymous with being divine by 
nature? So some interpreters maintain. But, as Kennedy 
says, ‘ there is absolutely nothing in the text to justify the 
supposition.’ Lipsius justly observes that the change of 
expression tells against the identification. The one expression 
is more naturally taken as referring to essential being, the other 
as referring to state or condition. 

Many who do not hold that the two expressions mean the 
same thing, yet maintain that equality with God is something 
which Christ must have possessed in his pre-incarnate state in 
virtue of his being divine by nature. So Gifford, for example 
(op. cit., p. 55). But equality with God and divinity of nature 
do not of necessity go together in Paul’s thought of Christ, 
as is shown by the fact that he is able to foresee the time 
when the Son himself, his work completed, shall be subjected 
to the Father (1 Cor. 15 : 28) ; for we can scarcely believe that 
Paul would think of the Son as having at that time ceased to 
be divine by nature. 

But if equality with God is not in Paul’s mind an inevitable 
concomitant of Christ’s divine nature, is it something which 
he thought of as being possessed by Christ in his pre-incarnate 
state? Or did the Apostle think of it as something which 
Christ could achieve in the future? Was it equality with 
‘God that he achieved at his exaltation? It is this latter 
view that we regard as the more probable. But let us turn 
to the other question. 

(5) What does the present clause say regarding the attitude 

87 


THE EPISTLE. OF PAUL TOSTHESPHILIPPIANG 


of Christ to equality with God? Paul here uses a noun— 
harpagmos—which occurs nowhere else in the Greek Scriptures, 
and is met with but rarely outside of the Scriptures. The verb 
which he employs in this clause he has just used in ver. 3 when 
he says humbly considering each other the better man. 

Now, this noun harpagmos may be either active or passive 
in meaning, that is to say, it may mean either ‘a snatching ’ 
or ‘a thing snatched.’ Is it active or is it passive in the 
present clause ? 

The form of the word suggests the active sense, and in 
that sense it seems to be understood by the A.V., which has 
‘ thought it not robbery to be equal with God,’ that is, “ deemed 
it no usurpation on his part to be equal with God.’ Several 
of the Latin Fathers interpret the clause in this way; but in 
recent times Webster and Wilkinson are almost alone in so 
doing. In their view, the clause expresses Christ’s “ conscious- 
ness of his essential deity in his pre-existent state,’ and so 
enhances ‘ the condescension of his humiliation.’ There are, 
however, several objections to this way of interpreting the 
words. For one thing, if this were the meaning, we should 
have expected the next clause to be introduced by “‘ neverthe- 
less’ or ‘and yet.’ For another, the drift of the passage does 
not lead us to expect just here a statement of Christ’s con- 
sciousness of his right to equality with the Father. 

The R.V. takes the noun in a passive sense—‘ counted it not 
a prize to be on an equality with God.’ It is true that it isa 
different form of the word that naturally bears the passive 
meaning; but the distinction between the two forms had 
become blurred at the time when the books of the New Testa- 
ment were written. The form used here by Paul may well 
bear the passive sense, and so in all probability it should be 
understood. But when we have decided to take it in that 
sense we have still to decide between the two possible meanings 
of ‘ booty to be retained’ and ‘ booty to be snatched.’ 

The former of these meanings associates itself with the 
view that equality with God is already possessed by Christ 
in his pre-existent state. If it be adopted, the sense of 
the clause will be that Christ did not look upon his equality 

88 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 5-11 


with God as a thing to be retained and held fast at all costs. 
The latter meaning, on the other hand, goes with the view 
that equality with God is not something already possessed by 
Christ. This second meaning suits the derivation of the word 
better than does the former. The cognate verb appears 
invariably to denote snatching something not yet possessed. 
So, in spite of Lightfoot’s contention that a phrase practically 
identical with that here used by Paul had come to mean ‘ to 
prize highly,’ ‘ to set store by ’ (the idea of robbery or plunder 
having entirely passed out of it), we prefer to think that 
Lipsius correctly gives the meaning of Paul when he says: 
‘ The sense is : Christ regarded this equality with God (which, 
though in divine form, he did not yet possess) not as a booty, 
that is to say, not as an object which he might violently and 
against the will of God snatch for himself... but rather as 
something attainable only through self-emptying and by 
the favour of God.’ This is also the interpretation adopted 
by Kennedy, and it is the one that is assumed in our translation. 
It may perhaps be said in criticism of the rendering in our 
translation that it does not sufficiently bring out the thought 
of mental judgment or decision expressed in the Greek. 

It has been suggested by various writers that there is in 
the mind of Paul a contrast between the spirit that animated 
Christ and the spirit manifested by some person or persons 
who did attempt to reach equality with God. The negative 
form of expression gives some countenance to the suggestion, 
as Kennedy and Dibelius have observed. The contrast, accord- 
ing to some, is with Adam (compare Gen. 3:5, 6). Dibelius 
thinks the humility and condescension of Christ are set over 
against the arrogant behaviour of Satan and certain other 
denizens of the spirit-world whose self-seeking spirit is depicted 
in the tenth chapter of the Ascension of Isatah. 

So far from snatching at equality with God the pre-existent 
Christ emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant. The 
rendering emptied himself, in which our translation agrees 
with the R.V., is nearer the Greek and in every way more 
satisfactory than that of the A.V. ‘made himself of no 
reputation.’ 


89 


THE EPISTLE OF (PAUL TG,2HE PHILIPPIANS 


Of what did Christ empty himself ? Paul does not specify. 
Several interpreters, influenced by the contrast between the 
divine nature of Christ referred to in ver. 6 and the nature of 
a servant which he assumes, maintain that it was of his 
divine nature that he divested himself. But the retention of 
the divine nature and the assumption of the nature of a servant 
are not incompatible; and it may be doubted whether the 
Apostle would regard as possible the surrender by Christ of 
his divine nature. 

According to others, it was of his equality with God that he 
emptied himself; but if the interpretation of this phrase 
which we have adopted is the correct one (that is to say, if the 
phrase refers to something which he did not yet possess in his 
pre-incarnate state), it follows that this explanation must be 
set.aside. We are not limited, however, to the divine nature 
and equality with God as possible objects of the self-emptying. 
Even if equality with God did not yet belong to the pre- 
existent Christ, there were conditions of glory and majesty 
that inevitably pertained to his divine nature; and if some 
specific secondary object must be found for the verb emptied, 
we may well think of these conditions as that object. So 
Lightfoot says: ‘ he divested himself, not of his divine nature, 
for this was impossible, but of the glories, the prerogatives, of 
Deity.’ Compare John 17: 5. 

It is possible that the Apostle was not thinking of any 
definite object for the verb. His words may have been in- 
tended to express a general antithesis to snatching at equality 
with God. In the Journal of Theological Studies, vol. xii, 
pp. 461-3, W. Warren suggests that the verb here needs no 
secondary object, but means ‘ to pour out,’ with ‘ himself’ as 
the direct object. He gives examples of the use of the verb in 
this sense. Liddell and Scott refer to a passage in which it 
means to pour (medicine) away. Taylor (Sayings of the 
Jewish Fathers) has compared Isa. 53: 12 with vers. 7 and 8 
of our passage (see Kennedy, p. 4394), and there the prophet 
says of the Servant that ‘he poured out his soul unto death.’ 
That this verse from Isaiah has some connexion with our 
passage would seem to be confirmed by the fact that in the 


go 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 5-11 


very next clause mention is made of a servant, and that in 
ver. 8 Christ is said to have been obedient unto death. 

Whatever may have been the exact meaning the Apostle 
attached to the words emptied himself, he goes on to tell that 
it was by taking the nature of a servant that Christ did empty 
himself. By taking correctly expresses his meaning, for he 
uses a participle whose action is contemporaneous with that 
of the verb emptied, and by which the action of the verb is 
explained. The word nature in this clause is the same as that 
used in ver. 6, for which in both places the A.V. and the 
R.V. have ‘form.’ It points to the reality of the state now 
assumed by Christ. Not in appearance only did he become a 
servant. Was it to God or to man that he became a servant ? 
The obedience spoken of in ver. 8 is naturally understood as 
obedience rendered to God, and that supports the view, pro- 
bable on other grounds, that it was God’s servant he became. 
Vincent and Plummer combine the two ideas. The word 
rendered servant is the common word for slave, and points to 
the completeness of Christ’s surrender to the will of God. 
How great the contrast between the path he chose and the 
path he rejected ! 

In this verse Paul is speaking of the Incarnation itself, not 
of a pre-incarnate act of self-renunciation which prepared the 
way, so to speak, for the Incarnation. He speaks of a real 
kenosts. But it is evident that the present passage supplies 
but little foundation for the elaborate theories that are called 
‘kenotic.’ Nor do these theories afford us much help in our 
endeavour to understand the person of our Lord. ‘It is not, 
I am sure,’ says Bethune Baker, “ to any theory of depotentia- 
tion of God that we can look to give us the conditions under 
which we can explain Jesus as both human and divine—the 
fact of the Deus homo’ (Modern Churchman, September 1921, 
p. 292). The verb emptied is ‘ not used or intended here ina 
metaphysical sense to define the limitations of Christ’s incar- 
nate state, but as a strong and graphic expression of the com- 
pleteness of his self-renunciation ’ (Vincent). 

Christ’s self-renunciation did not cease when he entered into 
human life. In this verse Paul tells of the path of humiliation 


ot 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL \TOSZHE* PHILTIPPIANS 


which in his incarnate life he trod. Its opening clause (born 
in human guise) is commonly reckoned as a part of ver. 7, and 
construed closely with the words that precede. It may, how- 
ever, quite naturally be taken, as in our translation, with the 
words that follow: born in human guise .. . he humbly 
stooped. The A.V. has ‘ and was made in the likeness of men’ ; 
and the R.V. ‘ being made,’ etc. The same word ‘ likeness’ is 
used in Rom. 1:23, 5:14, 6:5, 8:3; as well as in 
Rev. 9:7. Rom. 8:3 speaks of God ‘sending His own Son 
in the guise of sinful flesh.” The word suggests similarity and 
nothing more ; it does not imply, as the word morphé would 
have done, the reality of Christ’s humanity. On the other 
hand, there is nothing in the clause to suggest that his 
humanity was not real—that he was man in appearance only. 
What the clause sets forth is his likeness to other men. The 
verb whose participle is rendered born in our translation does 
not here, as Ellicott points out, imply merely ‘to be born.’ 
Perhaps the meaning of the clause can best be expressed by a 
paraphrase, thus: ‘ Having come into human life, and being 
like men in general.’ 

To emphasize Christ’s likeness to other men Paul adds 
another clause—and appearing in human form. The noun 
form applies only to outward appearance—to that which is 
apprehended by the senses. Elsewhere in the New Testament 
it is found only in 1 Cor. 7 : 31 (‘ for the present phase of things 
is passing away’). Seeing that the whole paragraph reveals 
a rhetorical structure, Dibelius opines that the word form and 
the word guise in the preceding clause are parallel synonyms. 
Form, however, implies external semblance even more clearly 
than does guise. The participle also speaks of outward impres- 
sion, and is well rendered appearing. Sie Rae 

As man, then, he humbly stooped in his obedience even to 
die, and to die upon the cross. The R.V. renders more 
literally: ‘he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto 
death, yea, the death of the cross.’ Paul is here certainly 
speaking of our Lord’s self-humiliation in the days of his flesh, 
and not repeating in other words (as some have held) the state- 
ment of the pre-incarnate renunciation. The tense of the verb 


92 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 5-11 


‘sums up the holy course of submission either into one idea, 
or into-one initial crisis of will.’ (Moule). 

It is to the will of the Father, whose servant he became 
(ver. 7), that his obedience is rendered. Compare Rom. 
5:19 and Heb. 5:8. In the Greek the words even to die 
go closely with the reference to his obedience, and it would 
be slightly more in accord with the language of Paul to say: 


‘he humbly stooped in an obedience that was ready even to /. 


die.’ He went in his obedience even as far as death itself. 
‘Usque ad mortem’ is the rendering of the Vulgate. The 
word cross is without the definite article in the Greek—‘ and 
to die upon a cross ’—which serves to emphasize the nature 
of the death of shame and suffering to which he stooped. 
Such a death marks the utmost limit of self-renunciation. 
Gal. 3:13 (which quotes Deut. 21:23) reveals the horror 
with which the Jew regarded crucifixion; and the feelings 
of the Romans find expression in the words of Cicero, who 
says: ‘To bind a Roman citizen is an outrage; to scourge 
him a crime; it almost amounts to parricide to put him to 
death ; how shall I describe crucifixion ? No adequate word 
can be found to represent so execrable an enormity ’ (tn Verrem, 
5:66). Inhis pro Rabirto, again, he says: ‘ Far be the very 
name of a cross not only from the body, but even from the 
thought, the eyes, the ears of Roman citizens’ (5:10). With 
the present clause Heb. 12: 2 should be compared. 

This verse is the first of three in which the Apostle sets 
before his readers the other side of the great picture. After 
the humiliation comes the exaltation. Therefore God raised 
him high. The exaltation is not so much a reward (though 
Lipsius and others so speak of it) as a direct, natural, and 
inevitable consequence of the humiliation. It is the inversion, 
so to speak, of the self-emptying and of all the self-renunciation 
that followed upon it. The reference is to the Ascension and 
the subsequent state of glory and power at God’s right hand. 
The divine law which decrees that exaltation shall follow self- 
humiliation had been enunciated by our Lord (Matt. 23: 12; 
Luke 14:11, 18:146), and now ‘was gloriously fulfilled 
in his own case’ (Meyer, quoted by Vincent). The suggestion 


93 


9 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


of the present passage is that the same law will operate in 
the case of the Christians at Philippi if they manifest the 
same spirit of self-abnegation. 

And conferred on him, continues the Apostle, a Name above 
all names. As compared with the word ‘give’ of the A.V. 
and the R.V., the word ‘confer’ better suits the dignity 
of the Greek word used by Paul, which speaks of a gracious 
bestowal. The same verb is used in I: 29 in the clause ‘ you 
have the favour of suffering.” Our translation agrees with the 
A.V. in having ‘a Name,’ but ‘ the Name,’ as in the R.V., is 
much better attested. The Name conferred on Christ is above 
all names, as Bengel observes, and not merely above all human 
names. Compare Eph. 1:20, 21, where we read of the 
Father seating the Son at His own right hand ‘above ali 
the angelic Rulers, Authorities, Powers, and Lords, above 
every Name that is to be named not only in this age but in 
the age to come.’ 

What is the Name which the Son receives from the Father ? 
Lightfoot suggests that ‘ we should probably look to a very 
common Hebrew sense of ‘“‘ name,” not meaning a definite 
appellation, but denoting office, rank, dignity.” The sugges- 
tion, however, has not met with much favour. Alford, 
Ellicott, and some few other expositors take ‘ Jesus’ to be 
the name. The new name, however, was conferred at the 
exaltation, whereas ‘ Jesus’ was the Son’s name in the days 
of his humiliation. Moule, who does not himself accept this 
view, observes that those who hold it might contend that the 
elevation of the name ‘ Jesus’ ‘for ever into the highest 
associations, in the love and worship of the saints, was as it were 
a new giving of it, a giving of it as new.’ But the suggestion 
does not rob the objection of its force. Vincent regards 
‘ Jesus Christ ’ as the name, but this view is exposed to the same 
objection. Theodoret suggests ‘God’ or ‘Son of God.’ 

Recent exposition has been tending strongly towards the 
view that the Name is ‘ Lord ’—the title that actually occurs 
in the confession in ver. 11. Lightfoot admits that if the 
Apostle has in his mind some one definite term, ‘ Lord’ is 
probably the one intended. ‘Lord’ is the rendering of the 


94 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 5-11 


Hebrew Yahweh in the LXX, and the title was common in 
Gentile religion. ‘To St. Paul and his age,’ says Maurice 
Jones, ‘the Christ, Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen, has 
become equated with the Most High God of the Jews, and 
for him is claimed exclusively the honour associated in 
paganism with the supreme deity.’ 

This verse and the next state the purpose of the Father in 10 
exalting the Son and conferring on him the Name above all 
names—so that before the Name of Jesus every knee should 
bend in heaven, on earth, and underneath the earth, and every 
tongue confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord,’ to the glory of God 
the Father. 

The words in italics are quoted from Isa. 45 : 23, where 
Yahweh foretells the universal worship that would one day 
be paid to him: ‘ As I am God and God alone, I swear by 
myself, I swear a true word, never to be recalled, that every 
knee shall bow to me, and every tongue swear loyalty.’ This 
verse is quoted also in Rom. 14: 11, where the reference is 
to the worship of God. In our passage, as will be shown below, 
the words are probably used of the adoration to be paid to 
the Son, which points to the lofty place that he occupied in 
the thought of Paul and the early Christians. There may 
also be some connexion between our passage and 1 Enoch 
48 : 5, where we read: ‘All who dwell on earth shall fall down 
and worship before him, and will praise and bless and celebrate 
with song the Lord of Spirits.’ It is significant that in the 
immediate context in Enoch (vers. 2 and 3) reference is 
made to the naming of the Son of Man. 

Answering to the words in heaven, on earth, and underneath 
the earth the A.V. has: ‘ of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth’; and the R.V. is virtually 
the same. In the Greek three adjectives are used which 
may be either masculine or neuter. If the writer intended 
them as neuter—and Lightfoot thinks he did—the words 
are a general expression for the whole universe; such an 
interpretation reminds us of Rom. 8:22, where the Apostle 
speaks of the ‘ entire creation’ being affected by the redemp- 
tion wrought by Christ. If, on the other hand, the adjectives 


95 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


are masculine, the reference seemingly is to the angels, the 
living, and the dead. The view which identifies those under- 
neath the earth with the dead is more probable than that which 
sees in the words a reference todemons. Fanciful explanations 
such as that which finds here a reference to Christians, Jews, 
and pagans, are not worthy of serious attention. Combinations 
of the three adjectives here used, or of similar adjectives, are 
to be found in the papyri (see Moulton and Milligan, Vocabu- 
lary, p. 236). Compare Rev. 5: 13. 

The Name of Jesus means, not the Name Jesus, but the 
Name belonging to Jesus. Before translates the common 
Greek preposition whose ordinary meaning is ‘in.’ ‘In’ is 
the rendering of the R.V., whereas the A.V. has ‘at.’ Is the 
Name of Jesus here thought of as the object or as the medium 
of worship and homage? Is the worship paid directly ¢éo his 
Name, or to the Father 1x his Name? Each view has its 
advocates. It is highly probable that the words speak of the 
direct ascription of worship to the Son. That is what the 
general drift of the passage would lead us to expect ; and it 
is the confession of zs lordship that is described in the parallel 
clause. Lightfoot cites several instances of the construction 
employed here, in each of which direct adoration is obviously 
intended. Before is thus seen to be an excellent rendering of 
the preposition. The Name of Jesus stands for ‘ Jesus as 
bearing the new Name of Lord conferred on him by the 
Father.’ 

Ir Universal confession of the lordship of Jesus Christ—that 
aspect of the purpose of the exaltation—is the subject of this 
verse. The verb rendered confess may mean ‘ to confess with 
thanksgiving,’ ‘to proclaim joyfully.’ That is its most pro- 
minent meaning in the LXX, and the meaning adopted by 
Lightfoot in our present passage. But elsewhere in the New 
Testament its commonest meaning is ‘ to confess ’ simply, and 
no imperative reason suggests itself for departing from that 
meaning in the present verse. 

Jesus Christ is Lord—that is what every tongue will confess. 
Here we have the earliest creed of the Christian Church (see 
Rom. 10: 9 and 1 Cor. 12: 3; there may also be a reference to 


96 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 5-11 


this early creed in Eph. 5: 26, where see Moffatt’s transla- 
tion). Lord was the title most commonly applied to Jesus by 
the early Christians ; it is used of him about two hundred and 
fifty times in the epistles of Paul. As we have already seen, 
it is the word employed in the LXX to translate the Hebrew 
name Yahweh. According to the early chapters of the Acts of 
the Apostles, the title was applied to Jesus Christ in the first 
days of Jewish Christianity (compare also 1 Cor. 16: 22) ; and 
its ready adoption by those who entered the Church from 
paganism is not difficult to understand, for it was a common 
term in the mystery cults (see Kennedy, Vital Forces of 
the Early Church, chap. 8, on ‘The Lordship of Christ’). 
Lord was one of the most vital terms in the pagan world of 
that age, as it also was within the pale of the Christian fellow- 
ship. Kennedy observes that in our day it ‘has become one » 
of the most lifeless words in the Christian vocabulary,’ and | 
adds that ‘to enter into its meaning and give it practical 
effect would be to recreate, in great measure, the atmosphere 
of the Apostolic age.’ 

The verse closes with the words to the glory of God the 
Father. This is the ultimate purpose of all that is spoken of 
in vers. 9-11. The words are not to be taken in immediate 
connexion..with Jesus Christ is Lord, as though they formed 
part of the confession. They remind us of the great saying of 
1 Cor. 15: 28: ‘ When everything is put under him, then the 
Son himself will be put under Him who put everything under 
him, so that God may be everything to everyone.’ Here is 
struck ‘the final chord of the Pauline theology’ (Kennedy, 
in Peake’s Commentary, p. 8136). Compare John 13: 31 and 
17:1; and the Odes of Solomon 10:5. Even the exaltation ) 
finds its climax and completion in a self-surrender to the; 
Father on the part of the Son. 


AN APPEAL TO THE CHURCH TO WORK OUT ITS OWN 
SALVATION (II. 12-18) 
Therefore, my beloved, as you have been obedient always and 12 
not simply when I was present, so, now that I am absent, 
work all the more strenuously at your salvation with 


97 


13 
14 
15 


16 


17 
18 


THE EPISTLEVORNPAUL TOSWHEOPRILIPPIANS 


reverence and trembling, for it is God who in his goodwill 
enables you to will this and to achieve it. In all that you 
do, avoid grumbling and disputing, so as to be blameless 
and innocent, faultless children of God in a crooked and 
perverse generation where you shine like stars in a dark 
world; hold tast the word of life, so that I can be proud of 
you on the Day of Christ, because I have not run or worked 
for nothing. Even if my life-blood has to be poured as a 
libation on the sacred sacrifice of faith you are offering to 
God, I rejoice, I congratulate you all—and you in turn must 
rejoice and congratulate me. 


The counsel which the Apostle now addresses to his readers 
is the natural sequel to the great paragraph that precedes it. 
The word therefore in ver. 12 shows that the connexion of 
thought is close. The great statements made regarding 
Christ Jesus were introduced for a practical purpose. The 
Apostle’s enunciation of truths concerning his Saviour is never 
merely theoretical. The object is ever to save and nourish 
souls, and build up the communities of the saints. 

What kind of counsel should we expect the Apostle to base 
upon the example set by Christ Jesus ? Surely not the counsel 
that each individual addressed should be concerned about his 
or her own personal salvation. An appeal to work out one’s 
own individual salvation—however appropriate it might be 
under different circumstances—would be singularly inappro- 
priate coming immediately after the great passage in which is 
described the self-sacrifice of our Lord. For this and other 
reasons we believe that the meaning commonly given to the 
injunction addressed to the Philippians in ver. 12 charging them 
to work at their salvation is erroneous. Paul is not urging 
them as individuals to work at their personal salvation : he is 
urging the whole body of Christians at Philippi to work out 
their salvation as a community. 

We have already seen (see p. 62) that the whole section of 
our epistle extending from 1:27 to 2: 18 is a closely-woven 
unit in which the Apostle impresses upon his readers the duty 
of their forming a harmonious body free from disputes and 


98 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 12-18 


dissensions. From the beginning to the end of this section 
Paul is instructing and exhorting the Philippians with regard 
to their common life ; and it would be strangely incongruous 
to introduce into the heart of the passage an injunction bearing 
upon the personal salvation of the individual members of the 
Church. And this is precisely what the Apostle does if the 
common interpretation of ver. 12 is correct. In the notes that 
follow we shall endeavour to show that the social interpreta- 
tion is the natural one to give to the Apostle’s words. There 
is nothing in the phraseology of the paragraph that tells 
against this interpretation; on the contrary, everything 
would seem to support it. See the article on ‘ Work out 
your own Salvation’ in the Expositor for December 1924, 
pp. 439-50, where this interpretation is set forth more 
fully. 

Before we proceed to examine the paragraph in detail 
another preliminary remark may be added. The verses seem 
to us to furnish clear evidence that Paul is here comparing and 
contrasting himself with Moses when he was giving to the 
children of Israel his parting injunctions as described in the 
closing chapters of Deuteronomy. This thesis has some bear- 
ing upon our contention that the Apostle is addressing the 
Philippian Church as a whole and not as individuals; for 
Moses addresses his words to Israel as a community, and if it 
is established that Paul has in mind the analogy between the 
lawgiver and himself, some support is given to the view that 
he is concerned about the welfare of the Philippians as a body, 
and not primarily about the personal salvation of the indivi- 
dual members of the Church. In any case, the suggestion 
sheds some light on the thought of Paul in the present passage. 
In ver. 15 there is an obvious reference to the ‘ Song of Moses’ 
in Deut. 32; but that is not the only point of contact between 
this paragraph and Deuteronomy. Indeed, we have already 
noticed in 1: 28 a possible allusion to the words of Moses in 
Deut. 31:6. It has also been suggested that in 1: 19 ff. the 
Apostle has in mind certain resemblances between his own lot 
and the circumstances of Job. If these suggestions regarding 
Moses and Job are well founded—as we believe them to be— 


a9 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


they reveal to us one source of strength and solace of which 
Paul availed himself in his prison. 

12 The language of ver. 12 leaves us in some doubt whether the 
two clauses in which Paul speaks of his presence and of his 
absence should be taken with you have been obedient or with 
work at your salvation. The R.V. reproduces the ambiguity 
of the Greek. Literally the clauses mean ‘not as in my 
presence only, but now much more in my absence.’ Our 
translation deftly separates them, and perhaps by so doing 
succeeds in expressing Paul’s exact meaning. Both clauses 
should be taken, we think, with work at your salvation, the 
meaning being: ‘In consonance with your invariable obedi- 
ence in the past, work all the more strenuously at your salva- 
tion now in my absence, and not in the spirit that will do its 
best only when I am present.’ The Apostle’s language is 
somewhat involved, but this, we think, expresses his meaning 
with fair exactness. 

He addresses his readers as my beloved. The epithet is of 
frequent occurrence in his epistles, and is found in a similar use 
in the papyri, both in Christian and in non-Christian letters. 
Its frequency in Paul betrays the warmth of his love for his 
converts ; and to no group would he apply it more whole- 
heartedly than to the Philippians. In 4: 1 we find it twice in 
one verse. 

In the clause as you have been obedient always the Apostle, 
with the tact so characteristic of him in all his dealings with 
his converts, indicates that the past behaviour of the Philip- 
pians gives him confidence as he addresses to them the present 
injunction. A contrast between the attitude of the children 
of Israel to Moses and the attitude of the Philippians to himself 
would seem to be in his mind. In Deut. 31 : 27 Moses charges 
the children of Israel with having been rebellious against the 
Lord while he was yet alive with them. Unlike the Israelites in 
their rebellious mood, the Philippians have always been 
obedient. Obedient to whom? There has been much discus- 
sion as to whether obedience to God or to the Apostle is meant. 
It is with rebellion against Yahweh that Moses charges the 
Israelites, and that may suggest that Paul is thinking of 

100 





CHAPTER II, VERSES 12-18 


obedience to God. In either case the meaning is the same, for 
the Philippians’ obedience to God would take the form of com- 
pliance with the injunctions and precepts of the Apostle. 

What precisely does Paul mean by his ‘ presence’ and his 
‘absence’? Does he, as is commonly supposed, mean just 
his presence at, or absence from, Philippi? We are confident 
that he means something other than that. Moses, after charg- 
ing the Israelites (in Deut. 31:27) with rebellion against 
Yahweh while he was yet alive with them, adds: ‘ And how 
much more after my death?’ We think that when Paul says 
‘now much more in my absence’ he is alluding to the words 
of Moses. And does not the use of the word now imply that 
the change from presence to absence either had just taken 
place or else was just about to take place at the time when 
Paul was writing? Some years, however, had passed by 
since he was at Philippi. Paul is referring to his presence in 
this life, and to his impending departure from this life. Note 
how in ver. 17 he speaks as though the surrender of his life 
were imminent. Moses in Deut. 31: 29 predicts with sorrow 
what will happen after his death: ‘ For I know that after my 
death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from 
the way which I have commanded you.’ Paul, on the con- 
trary, with a confidence springing from his experience of the 
unbroken obedience of the Philippians in the past, urges them 
all the more strenuously after his death to work out their own 
salvation. We say ‘their own salvation,’ for there is more 
emphasis on the pronominal adjective than the rendering of 
our translation would lead us to suppose. The point of the 
emphasis is that the Philippians must now act for themselves. 
Hitherto, though separated from them, the Apostle has been 
able to guide and encourage them by letter or by spoken mes- 
sage entrusted to some travelling friend. Soon he will be 
gone beyond their reach. The great heart that has sheltered 
them will soon have ceased to beat ! 

As we have seen, the words work at your own salvation have 
reference not to the personal salvation of the individual 
members of the Church at Philippi, but to the well-being of 
the community as a whole. Some would render: ‘work at 

IOI 


THE EPISTLE\OF, PAUL TO THE TBRILIEAIANS 


the salvation of one another,’ or ‘ promote the welfare of each 
other.’ But although the Greek can bear this rendering, we 
do not think it represents exactly what Paul means. The 
Apostle is addressing the Philippians as a group, charging 
them to be concerned about the well-being of their community, 
threatened as it is with disruption. Thus interpreted, his 
injunction comes naturally after vers. 5-11. It is to the per- 
formance of an act of self-renunciation resembling that of 
Christ that he urges his readers. 

Our translation says work at, whereas the R.V. has ‘ work 
out’; and there is something to be said for the latter render- 
ing. The verb is a favourite one with Paul, occurring twenty 
times in his epistles, and elsewhere in the New Testament 
only twice or thrice. It suggests the idea of working owt, of 
bringing to completion. Usque ad metam, says Bengel, in his 
comment on the present passage. The Church at Philippi is 
urged to work at its salvation until its salvation is complete, 
until its health is fully established. Every trace of dissension 
should go. Paul might have addressed to the Philippians the 
words ‘Clean out the old dough that you may be a fresh 
lump’ (1 Cor. 5:7). 

They are to work out their salvation with reverence and 
trembling. The A.V. and the R.V. render more literally and 
baldly ‘ with fear and trembling.’ The phrase does not occur 
in the New Testament outside the Pauline epistles. It seems 
to have acquired an idiomatic meaning—a meaning less 
forcible than one would expect from the words of which it is 
composed. Neither in 2 Cor. 7:5 nor in Eph. 6:5, where 
the phrase is found, is the meaning ‘ with fear and trembling ’ 
suitable. It should also be noticed that in both of these 
passages the words are used to describe an attitude towards 
men. The phrase doubtless bears some such meaning asis given 
to it by three old interpreters quoted by J. H. Burn in a note 
in the Expository Times for September 1923 (p. 562), whose 
renderings are as follows: ‘with respect and reverence’ 
(Thomas Belsham) ; ‘ with the most submissive deference and 
solicitude ’ (Edward Harwood) ; ‘ with humility and concern’ 
(J. Pierce). As we interpret the passage, the phrase de- 

102 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 12-18 


scribes, not the attitude towards God in which the individual 
Philippian should seek to work out his own personal salvation, 
but rather the spirit that should characterize the behaviour 
of each member in his relation to the rest of the community. 
This brings the use of the phrase in our passage into line with 
the other Pauline occurrences. 

Ver. 13 supplies a ground for the injunction of ver.12. Even 13 
after the Apostle’s death they should strive to make the 
Church perfect, for the work of salvation that is going on 
in the community is God’s own working! Unless they 
worked at their salvation they would be impeding His work ! 
It is God, says Paul, who enables you to will this and to achieve 
it. In this rendering the verbs enable and achieve represent 
the same Greek verb—a verb which connotes effective working. 
An effective divine energy is at work in the community, and 
if the Philippians only avail themselves of its presence, co- 
operate with it, and permit it to express itself in their working, 
the inevitable result will be not only the willing, but also 
the achieving, by them of the salvation of the community. 
We should perhaps have expected that, to describe the Philip- 
pians’ part, Paul would have used the same verb that he uses 
in ver. 12, and have said: ‘ It is God who enables you to will 
this and to work it out’; but instead of this he repeats the 
very verb which he employs of God’s own effective working. 
Surely there is significance in this double use of the same 
verb. It is implied that their actual working cannot fail to be 
effective. If God is allowed to work in their working, the end 
will be achieved. He works both the willing and the achieving. 
The hidden working of their minds and hearts in the direction 
of harmony, no less than its actual achievement, is His work. 

Our translation says that God does all this in his goodwill. 
Literally rendered, Paul’s words are ‘ on behalf of (the) good- 
will.’ The noun is the same as that used in 1: 15 to express 
the motive of the preachers who receive the Apostle’s com- 
mendation. It is usual to interpret the goodwill in our present 
passage as the goodwill of God, the phrase thus meaning: ‘in 
fulfilment of His benevolent purpose’ (Lightfoot). The 
rendering in his goodwill is another way of saying this. It is 

103 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


possible, however, to understand the phrase in a way that is 
nearer to the natural meaning of the Greek, and at the same 
time in accord with our interpretation of the passage as a 
whole. With some of the ancient versions, as well as with some 
modern interpreters, we prefer to regard the goodwill spoken 
of here as the goodwill that should characterize the Christian 
community at Philippi. The phrase means ‘ to promote the 
(virtue of) goodwill,’ the whole verse stating that ‘it is God 
who is working among them both the willing and the working 
to promote goodwill.’ 

Once more there seems to bea point of contact with Deuter- 
onomy. Time and again Moses tells the children of Israel 
that whereas he is not permitted to remain with them, Yahweh 
will be with them. In Deut. 31:8, for example, we read: 
‘ And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee ; he will be 
with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee.’ Is there 
no connexion between such promises made by Moses and the 
declaration of Paul that God is working among the Philippians ? 
Even if Paul is taken away, God will continue to work among 
them ! 

14 The abrupt way in which this fresh command is introduced— 
In all that you do, avoid grumbling and disputing—without 
the least hint of any change in the course of the writer’s thought, 
clearly suggests that he is now expanding the previous injunc- 
tion. By avoiding grumbling and disputing in all that they 
did the Philippians would be working out their salvation. 
What are we to understand by grumbling and disputing ? The 
Greek has two nouns, each in the plural. ‘Do all things 
without murmurings and disputings’ is the rendering of the 
R.V. Most expositors interpret the former word as describing 
an attitude towards God; but the probability is that in this 
verse both nouns refer to attitudes towards men. This is the 
only occurrence of the former of the two in the Pauline epistles, 
but it occurs thrice elsewhere in the New Testament (in 
John 7:12, Acts 6:1, 1 Pet. 4: 9), and if its meaning in these 
passages is anything to go by, it stands for murmuring or 
grumbling against men in our passage also. The other of the 
two nouns—‘ disputings ’"—naturally refers to disputes in the 

104 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 12-18 


community. In the papyri it sometimes denotes a legal 
‘inquiry ’ or ‘ session’ for the hearing of cases (see Milligan, 
Selections, p. 34), and here the reference probably is to out- 
ward disputes and wranglings. Clearly grumbling and 
disputing were the evils that constituted the malady of the 
Philippian Church. 

The comprehensiveness of the prohibition should be noted. 
Just as in ver. 3 of this chapter the Philippians are urged 
never to act for private ends or from vanity, so here they are 
charged to avoid grumbling and disputing tm all they do. 
Paul is eager to rid the Church of every particle of the unholy 
leaven of strife and contention. Compare the unrestricted 
injunctions of 1 Cor. 10:31 and Col. 3:17. 

Paul proceeds to state what his readers would become by 15 
avoiding grumbling and disputing in all that they did. The 
somewhat elaborate statement may haply be intended as 
another gentle reminder that improvement was possible. 
See on I : 3-5. 

First of all, they would be blameless; no one would be able 
to point to anything worthy of censure in them. Moulton and 
Milligan (Vocabulary, p. 26) observe that the adjective here 
used is common in sepulchral epitaphs in conjunction with 
another adjective which means ‘ kind.’ Then they would be 
innocent. This adjective occurs twice elsewhere in the New 
Testament—in Matt. 10:16 (‘gutleless like doves’) and 
Rom. 16: 19 (‘innocents in evil’). The English word ‘ inno- 
cent ’ may mean either ‘harmless’ or ‘ guiltless.’ Although 
both the A.V. and the R.V. have ‘ harmless’ here, it is the 
other meaning that should be given to the word innocent in 
our translation, for the rendering ‘ harmless’ is due to a mis- 
taken etymology. The word used by Paul does not properly 
mean ‘harmless’ at all. The fundamental notion of the 
adjective is freedom from foreign admixture; it is used of 
wine that is unmixed with water, and of metal that con- 
tains no alloy. It describes anything that is in its true and 
natural condition (see Trench, Synonyms, pp. 205, 206). 
‘Blameless ’ signifies that no one would be able to point to 
any flaw in the Church: ‘innocent’ means that actually no 

105 


THE EPISTLE: ORVPAGL \TOCTHE SPHILIPELANS 


impure ingredient would be present. The former relates to 
the verdict of outsiders who pass judgment, the latter describes 
intrinsic character. 

The rest of the description—faultiless children of God in a 
crooked and perverse generation—is an adaptation of words that 
occur in the “Song of Moses’ (see Deut. 32:5). As trans- 
lated in the R.V., this verse in Deuteronomy thus speaks of 
fickle Israel: ‘ They are not his children, it is their blemish ; 
they are a perverse and crooked generation.’ From the first 
half of this Deuteronomic verse the Apostle fashions a 
description of the Philippians—‘ unblemished (or faultless) 
children of God.’ The second half of the verse Paul deftly 
applies to the opponents of the Philippians—the crooked and 
perverse generation by whom they are surrounded. Note that 
in our text the word in is not printed in italics, as it does not 
form part of the verse that is quoted. 

The word rendered faultless originally and properly means 
‘blameless,’ but through the influence of the Hebrew word for 
‘blemish ’ it came to mean ‘ free from blemish,’ the meaning 
which it almost invariably bears in the LXX, and probably its 
one and only meaning in its eight occurrences in the New 
Testament. They would be God’s children—sharing His 
nature—without a blemish! Grumbling and disputing obscure 
and destroy the august relationship ! 

In a crooked and perverse generation : our translation 
agrees with the A.V. and the R.V. in these two epithets. The 
generation among whom the Philippians live is crooked and 
twisted ; it is not in line with the truth, but curved and dis- 
torted from the straight. Where you shine, adds the Apostle, 
like stars in a dark world. Shine is an improvement on the 
‘are seen’ of the R.V., and stars is a far better rendering than 
the ‘lights’ of the R.V.text. The margin of the R.V. more 
correctly has ‘luminaries.’ Like stars is perhaps remi- 
niscent of the LXX of Daniel 12:3: ‘and they that be wise 
shall shine as the stars of heaven.’ Only in Rev. 21: 11 does 
the word here rendered ‘ star’ occur again in the New Testa- 
ment. 

Is Paul thinking of the influence of the Philippian Church 

106 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 12-18 


upon the evil world around it, or only of the contrast between 
the Church and the world ? The question is usually discussed 
in connexion with the interpretation of the opening clause of 
ver. 16. 

The opening words of this verse form in the Greek a parti- 16 
cipial clause which in the A.V. and the R.V. is rendered ‘ holding 
forth the word of life.’ It is possible, however, to render 
‘holding fast the word of life.’ Indeed the latter is perhaps 
the more natural meaning of the verb, and there is evidence 
for it in the papyri. If theidea of influence is present in the 
last clause of ver. 15, then ‘ holding forth ’ would be a suitable 
rendering in the present context. If, on the contrary, Paul 
is thinking of contrast only in ver. 15, ‘ holding fast’ would 
be the more appropriate rendering. On the whole, the idea 
of contrast is more probable than that of influence, and it has 
the advantage of associating with itself the more natural 
meaning of the participle in ver. 16. ‘ The connexion of 
thought is this: the world is dark, but you are points of 
light ; don’t let yourselves be extinguished, as you will be if 
you give way to bad temper and strife. Adherence to the 
gospel implies that stedfast obedience to God, that humble, 
unselfish spirit, which is equivalent to real “‘ life’ ’ (Moffatt, 
in Expositor, November 1916, p. 344). 

It goes without saying that contrast involves influence. 
Even if Paul has nothing other than contrast in his mind in the 
last clause of ver. 15, that contrast would of necessity involve 
some influence. They could not shine like stars without 
thereby exerting an influence. We are reminded of the words 
of Jesus: ‘So your light is to shine before men, that they 
may see the good you do and glorify your Father in heaven’ 
(Matt. 5 : 16). 

Our translation rightly renders the participle by means of 
an imperative : hold fast the word of life. There is, we think, 
a slight break in the thought between ver. 15 and ver. 16, and 
we are at liberty to discuss the force of the closing words of ver. 
15 independently of the meaning of the opening words of ver. 16. 
In ver. 16 Paul sums up, so to say, all his injunctions in the 
preceding verses. ‘ Hold fast,’ he says, ‘the word of life ; 

107 


THE EPISTLE ORVPAUL TO WHE tPAiliPpPrans 


maintain your hold upon the principles enunciated in the 
message that brought life to you ; do not relax your grip upon 
the truths which I declared unto you.’ Nowhere else in Paul 
does the phrase the word of life occur. 

To the injunction Paul subjoins an inducement to obedience. 
Hold fast the word of life, he says, so that I can be proud of you 
on the Day of Christ. The Day of Christ is the day already 
alluded to in I: 6 and 1 : 1o—the day of his Parousia (see the 
note on 1:6). ‘With a view to the Day of Christ’ is what 
Paul actually says in the present passage; the pride in the 
Philippians which he desires is something that is to be reserved, 
as it were, for the great day. It is then that he will require it. 
What he desires is of course something very different from the 
vanity which he condemns in 2:3. In 1: 26, using the very 
noun that he uses here, Paul speaks of himself as the ground 
of exultant joy to his readers ; so here it is a ground of noble 
exultation that he requests his readers to provide for him. 
Compare 2 Cor. 1: 14 and 1 Thess. 2: 19, 20. 

The basis of the pride which he prays may be his on the 
great day is expressed in the words because I have not run or 
worked for nothing. He pictures himself looking back upon 
his life from the standpoint of the Day of Christ, and finding 
that his toil has not been in vain. He asks the Philippians to 
make it possible for him to enjoy such a retrospect. The 
phrase for nothing, which in the New Testament is used only 
by Paul, is found in the papyri of water running to waste (see 
Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 340). Paul does not 
want to discover when he comes to the Day of Christ that all 
his efforts have run to waste. 

The words worked for nothing are in our text printed in 
italics as being reminiscent of Isa. 49: 4and 65:23. Avery 
similar phrase is used in Gal. 4: 11, where Paul says: ‘ Why, 
you make me afraid I may have spent my labour on you for 
nothing!’ Compare also 1 Thess. 3:5, where the Apostle 
speaks of the possibility that his ‘labour had been thrown 
away. Lightfoot thinks the metaphor is taken from fruitless 
training for the games on the part of unsuccessful athletes. 
Deissmann suggests another source for the metaphor. ‘In 

108 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 12-18 


fact,’ he writes, ‘with regard to all that Paul the weaver 
of tent-cloth has to say about labour, we ought to place our- 
selves as it were within St. Paul’s own class, the artisan class 
of the Imperial age, and then feel the force of his words. They 
all become much more lifelike when restored to their original 
historical milieu. ‘‘I laboured more abundantly than they 
all ’’—these words, applied by St. Paul to missionary work, 
came originally from the joyful pride of the skilled weaver, 
who, working by the piece, was able to hand in the largest 
amount of stuff on pay-day. The frequent references to 
“labour in vain ’’ are a trembling echo of the discouragement 
resulting from a width of cloth being rejected as badly woven 
and therefore not paid for’ (Light from the Ancient East, 
Pp. 317). 

Paul’s appeal to the Philippians so to live that his toil will 
not have been in vain reminds us of the appeal of Savonarola 
addressed to the Brethren of his Convent at Florence on the 
fifth of August, 1497: ‘ Remember, I pray you, the sufferings 
of our holy father Dominic, whose feast we keep to-day, and 
strive to live so godly as that his sufferings and labours on our 
behalf may not have been in vain’ (Spiritual and Ascetic 
Letters, p. 59). 

In the A.V. and the R.V. ver. 17 opens with ‘ yea,’ a word 
which is not definitely represented in our translation. Inas- 
much as the word used by Paul commonly means ‘ but,’ it is 
customary to discuss the nature of the contrast that was 
in his mind as he wrote. As, however, the word is frequently 
used to give emphasis to the words which it introduces, or 
even just to introduce an accessory idea, there is no need 
to assume that a definite contrast was present in the Apostle’s 
mind. The mention of his labours for his readers leads the 
Apostle to say that there is no limit to the sacrifice that he 
would joyfully make on their behalf; and the order, in the 
Greek, of the two little words rendered even if shows that he 
fully anticipates that he will soon be called upon to surrender 
his life. Huis use of the present indicative, too, in the opening 
clause of ver. 17 shows not only that he is anxious to bring 
the hypothesis vividly before the minds of his readers, but also 

109 | 


17 
18 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


that the possibility of his execution is vividly present to his 
own mind. He speaks of his life-blood being poured out as a 
libation on their sacrifice, using the verb that he also uses in 
2 Tim. 4:6 where he says, “ The last drops of my own sacri- 
fice are falling.’ 

There has been much debate regarding the exact meaning 
of the words in which Paul speaks of the sacrifice of the 
Philippians. Literally rendered, his words run, ‘upon the 
sacrifice and service of your faith.’ What precisely does that 
mean? Is their faith the victim, so to speak, that is offered 
in sacrifice? If so, by whom 1s it offered? Is Paul the 
priest ? Or are the Philippians themselves the priests ? Each 
of these views has its advocates. Our translation—on the 
sacred sacrifice of faith you are offering to God—regards their 
faith as the thing offered, and interprets the word ‘service’ 
of the act of offering that sacrifice of faith to God. This may 
well be Paul’s meaning, though we must own to the feeling 
that it would suit his words better to take faith as that which 
offers the sacrifice and renders the service. Their adherence 
to the new faith entails the offering of a sacrifice to God which 
is at the same time the rendering of a service toHim. The 
two nouns ‘ sacrifice ’ and ‘ service ’ have in the Greek but one 
article, which shows that together they form one conception. 
What the Philippian Christians sacrifice is their comfort, 
their ease, their worldly prosperity, and possibly in some cases 
their very lives. Their sacrifice is akin to Paul’s own sacrifice, 
for, as he has reminded them in 1: 30, where he employs a 
different metaphor, they are waging the same conflict that he 
himself is waging. 

If we bear in mind the analogous nature of the two sacrifices 
—that of Paul and that of his readers—it will help us to under- 
stand his words about rejoicing in the remainder of ver. 17 
and in ver. 18. Congratulate is scarcely adequate to express 
the meaning of the verb so rendered in our translation. ‘To 
rejoice with’ is its simple and proper meaning. Paul has in 
mind, we believe, when he uses that verb, not felicitation 
merely, but rather a participation in the joy of another. 
He declares that he himself rejoices in his own sacrifice even 

IIo 


CHAPTER II, VERSES: 12-18 


if it should mean the outpouring of his very life-blood. He 
also takes for granted that they too rejoice in their sacrifice, 
and tells them that he participates in their joy. Then in 
ver. 18 he asks them in turn, or in the same way (compare 
Matt. 27: 44), to adopt a similar attitude towards the double 
sacrifice. Let them rejoice in their own sacrifice—as he has 
assumed in ver. 17 that they are doing—but let them parti- 
cipate also in his joy in his own sacrifice. Let there be a 
mutual sharing of joy. There is a correspondence in sacrifice : 
let there be also a correspondence in joy! Notice the word 
all ; once more the Apostle hints that he does not countenance 
their divisions. What a mighty encouragement it would be 
to the Philippians amid their trials and difficulties to know 
that he and they are thus bound together in mutual suffering 
and in mutual joy! Paul’s declaration of his joy in his 
sufferings would help them to rejoice in theirs. A great verse 
in Colossians gives us another glimpse of Paul’s joy in his 
sufferings : ‘ I am suffering now on your behalf,’ he says, ‘ but 
I rejoice in that; I would make up the full sum of all that 
Christ has to suffer in my person on behalf of the church, his 
Body ’ (Col. 1: 24). 


PAUL’s PURPOSE TO SEND TIMOTHEUS (II. 19-24) 


I hope in the Lord Jesus to send you Timotheus before long, 19 
that I may be heartened by news of you. I have no one 20 
like him, for genuine interest in your welfare. Everybody 21 
is selfish, instead of caring for Jesus Christ. But you 22 
know how he has stood the test, how he has served with 
me in the gospel, like a son helping his father. I hope 23 _ 
to send him then, as soon as ever I see how it will go with 
me—though I am confident in the Lord that I shall be 24 
coming myself before long. 


The section of the epistle in which the Philippians are 
urged to cast out the leaven of dissension and discord has now 
come to anend. A fresh subject is introduced. The Apostle 
hopes to send them Timotheus, and even sooner to send 

III 





THE EPISTEEV OR CPACL FORLAEREHILIC Pian 


back their own envoy Epaphroditus. Timotheus is the 
subject of vers. 19-24, Epaphroditus of vers. 25-30. 

Simple as the paragraph that speaks of Timotheus seems, it 
has been, and probably will always remain, the subject of some 
perplexing questions. Timotheus was to carry to Philippi the 
news of the issue of the Apostle’s imprisonment (see on ver. 23), 
and Paul evidently expects that the issue would soon be deter- 
mined. Seeing that the Apostle is so loath to part with 
Timotheus, and as the delay would not have been long, why 
does not Epaphroditus postpone his departure until the issue 
is known? This is but one of many questions raised by the 
paragraph. It is possible that, if we had full knowledge of all 
the circumstances, the difficulties would disappear; but it 
would be idle to pretend that they do not exist. It is not easy 
to abstain from wondering whether we have in vers. 19-24 a 
brief Pauline note, similar to the notes which have been incor- 
porated in the Pastoral Epistles, written to correspondents 
whose identity can no longer be determined, at a time when the 
Apostle chanced to be surrounded by persons who had not 
drunk deeply of the spirit of Christ. If that be so, the crisis 
anticipated in ver. 23 would be some less momentous event 
than the issue of the Ephesian imprisonment, and Paul’s con- 
fidence that he would soon see his correspondents would be 
more firmly based than the hope he entertained of seeing the 
Philippians when he wrote our epistle. Such a note might well 
have been sent to the Philippians themselves, and it may have 
found its way into our epistle attracted by the presence of the 
twin passage concerning Epaphroditus. Our misgivings do 
not perhaps furnish an adequate reason for detaching the 
paragraph from its traditional context ; and so we leave it— 
but with some hesitation—in that context, and expound it as 
a part of our epistle. 

19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send you Timotheus before long. 
The Lord Jesus was the sphere in which the hope had its 
being. Paul’s confidence that he would soon be coming 
himself was also ‘in the Lord’ (ver. 24). It has become 
almost an instinct with him to refer all things to his union 
with his Lord. 

I1IZ2 





CHAPTER II, VERSES 19-24 


The object of the mission of Timotheus is stated in the words 
that I may be heartened by news of you. Does the Apostle, 
then, send Timotheus just for his own satisfaction? By no 
means! Our translation ignores a slight nuance that is 
unmistakably present in Paul’s words. His statement, 
exactly rendered, would run: ‘ that I also may be heartened 
by news of you,’ The implication is clear that the Philip- 
pians will be heartened by the coming of Timotheus. The 
enheartening of his readers is so obviously a purpose of the 
mission that the Apostle is content to allude to it in this 
indirect way. Indeed, the Greek words which are rendered to 
send you Timotheus would suggest to the Philippians that he 
was being sent for their good. 

The verb rendered I may be heartened is one of great interest. 
Here only does it occur in the New Testament. Into its 
composition there enters the noun psyche (soul)—see the notes 
on 1: 27—and its meaning is ‘to be stout of soul,’ hence, 
“to be of good courage.’ It is touching to see this verb used 
in a second-century letter of consolation in place of the 
customary greeting which would scarcely accord with the 
character of the letter (see Milligan, Selections, p. 96). The 
imperative is common in sepulchral inscriptions meaning 
‘Farewell!’ or ‘ Be it well with thy soul!’ 

We gather from the Apostle’s words that he fully expects to 
get news of the Philippians. But he does not yet know (as 
ver. 23 shows) whether Timotheus is to bear to Philippi news 
of his acquittal or of his condemnation. If Timotheus bears 
tidings of condemnation, would Paul in that event expect to 
get news from Philippi before his execution ? Or is he for the 
moment assuming that his imprisonment will issue in his 
release ? 

How close is the bond that binds the Apostle and his readers 
in the communion of saints! With the possibility of execu- 
tion staring him in the face, he would be heartened by news of 
them. For that refreshment his soul craves. He assumes 
that the news when it comes will be of such a nature as to 
hearten him. The assumption is a delicate hint of his con- 
fidence in his readers. And what news does he expect to 

113 


THE EPISTLEVOPVPAUL 10 RESPHILIPLIANS 


receive ? Surely the news that peace and harmony are now 
firmly established among them. 

20 In vers. 20-22 the Apostle sets forth Timotheus’s qualifica- 
tions for the task he is about to undertake. Vers. 20, 21 set him 
in contrast with others who lack fitness, while ver. 22 speaks 
of the readers’ knowledge of his character and past services. 

I have no one like him, runs ver. 20, for genuine interest 
in your welfare. This rendering expresses Paul’s meaning 
exactly. Literally rendered, the opening words of the verse 
would run: ‘I have no one like-minded,’ and the question 
arises, ‘ Like-minded with whom ?’ Our translation assumes 
that the Apostle means ‘ like-minded with Timotheus’; and 
this interpretation is much more probable than that assumed 
in some of the ancient versions and held by several writers 
on our epistle, according to which Paul says, ‘I have no 
one like-minded with myself.’ The second half of the sentence 
—for genuine interest in your welfare—is in the Greek a relative 
clause, and suits the interpretation adopted in our translation 
better than it suits the other interpretation. Moreover, as 
Lightfoot has pointed out, if Paul had meant like-minded 
with himself, he must certainly have written, ‘I have no one 
else like myself.’ 

It is a Greek adverb that underlies the word genuine. 
The whole verse may be literally rendered thus: ‘I have no 
one like him, of the kind that will genuinely care for your 
welfare.’ The cognate adjective is found in 4:3 of our 
epistle (“ my ¢vue comrade ’), and in 2 Cor. 8:8, 1 Tim. 1: 2, 
Tit. 1:4, but in the present passage alone does the adverb 
occur. The primary meaning of the adjective is ‘ belonging 
to the race’ or ‘ born in wedlock.’ It sometimes bears this 
primary meaning in the papyri. In the earliest dated Greek 
papyrus that we possess (a marriage contract of 311-310 B.C.) 
it is used in the phrase ‘lawful wedded wife.’ ‘ Legal,’ 
‘suitable,’ ‘genuine,’ are other meanings it bears in the 
papyri. See Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, pp. 128, 129. 
Lightfoot in our present passage paraphrases the adverb 
thus: ‘asa birthright, as an instinct derived from his spiritual 
parentage.’ The adjective, as we have just noted, is used in 

114 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 19-24 


r Tim. 1: 2, where Paul is represented as speaking of Timo- 
theus as his ‘lawful son in the faith,’ and Lightfoot thinks 
that here in Philippians Paul, by the use of the adverb, means 
to imply that Timotheus, who ‘ recognised this filial relation- 
ship’ (as ver. 22 shows), had ‘ inherited all the interests and 
affections of his spiritual father.’ On this interpretation 
what Paul says is: ‘I have no one like him who will take in 
your welfare such an interest as I, his spiritual father, take.’ 
No one could take Paul’s place among the Philippians as 
Timotheus could. Moulton and Milligan, however, give it as 
their opinion that Lightfoot ‘rather overdoes the conscious- 
ness of the word’s ultimate origin.’ It is quite possible that the 
Apostle did not mean more than he is represented as saying 
in our translation. 

The verb in this clause—‘ to care for ’—is the verb used in 
the prohibition “never be anxious’ in 4:6. But there is no 
real contradiction. Timotheus’s care for the Philippians is a 
legitimate concern for the welfare of others, whereas the 
temper deprecated in 4:6 is that which refuses to cast its 
burden on the Lord. Paul employs the cognate noun in 
2 Cor. 11: 28, where he speaks of his own ‘care of all the 
churches.’ 

Everybody is selfish, instead of caring for Jesus Christ. 21 
This short verse has occasioned much discussion. With most 
expositors we feel constrained to think that the context calls 
for some restriction of the sweeping and severe indictment. 
It was surely not meant to apply to all the Christians in 
Ephesus, but only to such as could have been regarded by 
the Apostle as available for the mission to Philippi. Note 
that in ver. 20 Paul says, ‘I have no one like him’; he 
does not say, ‘ I know of no one like him’ or ‘ There is no one 
like him.’ Besides, we must not attach to the words too 
literal and strict a meaning. Paul does not quite mean all 
that his words seem to mean, any more than he does when 
he condemns the preachers in 1: 15 ff. (see p. 45). Temporary 
annoyance has led to an exaggeration of statement (see Moffatt, 
Introduction to the Literature of the N.T., p. 175). The 
suggestion has been made—and it is by no means improbable 

115 


THE EPISTLE OFCPAUL TOW PHENEPAILI PEI Aves 


—that Paul, in his eagerness to keep Timotheus by him, had 
proposed to his other coadjutors that one of them should 
undertake the journey to Philippi, and that, when they one 
and all refused, his distress at the prospect of parting with 
his trusty lieutenant led him to give utterance to this unduly 
severe impeachment. He could attribute their reluctance 
only to the fact that they were more concerned about their 
own interests than about the interests of their Lord. 

But. continues the Apostle, you know how he has stood the 
test. The R.V. follows the A.V. in the less perspicuous, 
because over-literal, rendering, ‘ But ye know the proof of 
him.’ The word rendered ‘ proof’ means either the process 
of proving or the result of the proving. Here it bears the 
latter meaning. We might render ‘ You are acquainted 
with his tested character,’ but the true force of the sentence 
is best given in English by the use of some such idiom as is 
employed in our translation. The test which Timotheus had 
stood was furnished, as the rest of the verse implies, by his 
co-operation with Paul in the work of the gospel. The 
Philippians had had ample opportunity for observing Timo- 
theus as he was undergoing the test; he was present when 
Paul first proclaimed to them the good news (Acts 16), and 
had seemingly paid Philippi at least one visit since that time. 
We know from 1 Thess. 3:1, 2 that Paul sent him back to 
Thessalonica from Athens, and he may well have visited 
the Philippians on that occasion. 

It is because the Philippians know how Timotheus has 
co-operated with Paul that they know how he has stood the 
test. You know... how he has served with me in the gospel, 
like a son helping his father. The original meaning of the word 
rendered served is ‘ to serve as aslave.’ It reminds us of the 
description of Paul and Timotheus in the opening salutation 
as ‘slaves of Christ Jesus.’ The Greek suggests that the 
Apostle was on the point of writing the present sentence in a 
form slightly different from the form which it actually assumed ; 
and the sudden change sheds a beam of light on his nature. 
Our translation does not show this ; indeed only by means of 


an excessively literal rendering can it be shown. What Paul . 


116 


ee 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 19-24 


actually says is: ‘You know .. . how, as a son [serveth] a 
father, he served with me.’ But it is made quite clear by 
the form of the sentence in the Greek that when he began to 
write it he intended to say: ‘ You know... how, as a son 
[serveth] a father, he served me.’ He is checked, however, 
by the innate delicacy of his nature; he will not permit the 
form of the sentence to hint that he thinks of Timotheus as 
his slave. The mere suggestion was intolerable; for were 
they not both slaves of the same Master? It is worthy 
of note that this casual and undesigned token of Paul’s 
inherent delicacy of feeling comes in the verse that follows 
immediately after the one in which he appears to be guilty 
of ungracious petulance! Had the cloud disappeared so 
soon ? 

I hope to send him then, continues the Apostle, as soon as 23 
ever I see how it will go with me. The word him is not without 
some emphasis, as if Paul were saying, ‘ This, then, is the man 
whom I hope to send—one so well qualified for the task.’ He 
hopes to send him as soon as ever he knows what the issue 
of his imprisonment is going to be. And it would not be 
long before his fate would be decided, for he tells his readers 
in ver. 19 that Timotheus would be sent ‘ before long.’ 

Though, he adds, I am confident in the Lord that I shall be 24 
coming myself before long. This confidence, like the hope 
in ver. 19, is in the Lord. Plummer calls attention to the 
remarkable fact that Paul uses more decided language about 
his own coming than about the sending of Timotheus; he 
hopes to send Timotheus (vers. Ig and 23); he is confident 
of coming himself (ver. 24). This may be regarded as supply- 
ing an additional reason for wondering whether the present 
passage is in its true context. The very same adverb before 
long is used in this verse as in ver. I9. One cannot but 
wonder why, if the Apostle could so ill afford to part with 
Timotheus, he should be in so great a hurry to send him to 
Philippi when he is so confident that he himself will be going 
soon. I Cor. 4:17 and 1g offers a striking parallel to vers. 
23 and 24, for there also Paul speaks of sending Timotheus 
and of coming himself. 

117 


25 
26 


27 


28 


29 


30 


THE EPISTLE*ORS PAUL 1 OVA MEHILIPrians 


PAUL’s DECISION TO SEND EPAPHRODITUS AT ONCE 
(II. 25-30) 

As for Epaphroditus, however, my brother, my fellow-worker, 
my fellow-soldier, and your messenger to meet my wants, 
I think it necessary to send you him at once, for he has 
been yearning for you all. He has been greatly concerned 
because you heard he was ill. And he was ill, nearly 
dead with illness. But God had mercy on him, and not 
only on him but on me, to save me from having one 
sorrow upon another. So I am specially eager to send him, 
that you may be glad when you see him again, and thus 
my own anxiety may be lightened. Give him a welcome 
in the Lord, then, with your hearts full of joy. Value 
men like that, for he nearly died in the service of Christ 
by risking his life to make up for the services you were 
not here to render me. 


In the last paragraph we met certain Christians who, as it 
seems, refused to undertake the journey to Philippi even at 
Paul’s urgent entreaty. Now we are introduced to one who is 
pining to go to Philippi! The passing glimpse of him afforded 
by the present paragraph reveals one of the most attractive 
and heroic characters to be found in the annals of early 
Christianity. All we know of him is what we can gather from 
this passage and from the mention of his name in 4: 18. 
Incidentally the paragraph exhibits Paul himself as a man of 
marvellous tenderness, forgetful of his own needs where 
the happiness and well-being of others are concerned. 

Some features of the little drama that comes before us 
only reveal themselves when we read between the lines. The 
course of events would seem to have been on this wise. The 
Philippians had sent one of their number, Epaphroditus by 
name, to the Apostle on a twofold mission. He was, first, the 
bearer of a gift, presumably a gift of money (see 4:18). But 
his task was not accomplished when the gift had been delivered. 
It was the intention of the Philippians (who may have furnished 
him with the means of his maintenance) that Epaphroditus 

118 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 25-30 


should remain with the Apostle so long as he had need of him. 
The messenger himself was a gift, so to speak, from the Philip- 
pians. And right worthily had he played his part, displaying 
a devotion which brought on a sickness that was all but 
mortal. The Philippians heard of his illness and were troubled. 
Epaphroditus in turn heard of their dismay. He yearned 
to be back amongst them, knowing that nothing but the 
sight of him restored to health would put an end to their 
anxiety. Paul observed the yearning, and made up his mind 
to send him to his friends. Epaphroditus was doubtless 
taken aback when Paul suggested that he should return. 
What would his friends at Philippi think? How would 
they look upon his desertion of the Apostle—for so they 
would regard his return? Paul tells him that he will assume 
the responsibility. He dictates our epistle, of which Epaph- 
roditus himself doubtless was the bearer, and inserts this 
gracious passage, telling of Epaphroditus’ devotion, and 
bespeaking for him a cordial welcome. With such a testi- 
monial in his hand, Epaphroditus consents to go. How could 
his friends possibly chide him ? 

As for Epaphroditus, however, writes the Apostle, my 25 
brother, my fellow-worker, my fellow-soldier, and your 
messenger to meet my wants, I think it necessary to send 
you him at once. 

However marks the difference between the case of Epaph- 
roditus and the case of Timotheus, who cannot be sent till 
Paul sees how things will go with him. Epaphroditus can 
and will be sent without any delay. The name‘ Epaphroditus’ 
arrests us; high-sounding as it is, it was by no means un- 
common, for it meets us often in the papyri and in inscriptions. 
It means ‘charming,’ and Epaphroditus was worthy of his 
name. The word embodies the name of the goddess Aphrodite, 
but ‘ no scruple appears to have been felt among the primitive 
Christians about the retention of such pre-baptismal names’ 
(Moule). 

In Col. 1:7, 4:12 and Philem. 23 we meet with the 
name ‘ Epaphras,’ which also is common in inscriptions. Of 
the person who bears the name, Paul speaks in terms of high 

119g 





THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


commendation. Now as ‘ Epaphras’ is a shortened form of 
Epaphroditus, and as the three letters in which the two 
names occur may have been written during the same imprison- 
ment, the question whether Epaphras and Epaphroditus 
are the names of one and the same person could not fail to 
arise. Those scholars who find one person only behind the two 
forms of the name argue that it would be strange if two 
persons bearing this name were with Paul during his imprison- 
ment. Notice, too, that what is said of Epaphras in Colossians 
would suit Epaphroditus admirably. Most scholars, however, 
rightly reject the identification. The name, in both its 
forms, is common ; and in Col. 4: 12 Paul speaks definitely of 
Epaphras as one of the Colossians, whereas every clause of the 
Philippian passage implies that Epaphroditus was a member 
of the Church at Philippi. 

My brother, my fellow-worker, my fellow-soldier—so does 
the Apostle describe Epaphroditus. The same three terms 
are found in Philem. 1 and 2, but of three different persons. 
Reference has already been made (in the note on 1:12) to 
the use of brother as a term applied to members of the same 
religious community. Here it describes Epaphroditus as a 
fellow-believer, though more than that must surely be involved 
in the use of the phrase my brother. There would be no 
necessity to speak of him as a Christian in a letter to the Philip- 
pians. My brother depicts him as one with whom Paul is 
associated in Christian fellowship. The two men are united 
in the bonds of a mutual Christian affection. Fellow-worker, 
a term applied in 4:3 to other members of the Philippian 
Church perhaps now dead, is not seldom used by the Apostle 
of those who shared with him in the work of the Lord, as, 
for example, of Prisca and Aquila in Rom. 16:3. Fellow- 
soldier reminds us that Christian toil is also a conflict. Else- 
where in the New Testament the exact term is used only of 
Archippus in Philem. 2. Some have thought that when he 
speaks of Epaphroditus as his fellow-soldier Paul is thinking 
of their conflicts at Philippi; but there is no apparent reason 
for thus restricting the reference. The Apostle may be 
thinking chiefly if not wholly of the conflicts at Ephesus. 

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CHAPTER II, VERSES 25-30 


Brother, fellow-worker, fellow-soldier! How intense must 
have been the devotion of Epaphroditus to the Apostle himself 
and to the cause of their common Master to evoke so noble 
a commendation! Lightfoot calls attention to the ascending 
scale—common sympathy, common work, common danger 
and toil and suffering; and Kennedy quotes the words of 
Anselm: ‘Frater in fide, cooperator in praedicatione, com- 
milito in adversis.’ 

But the description of Epaphroditus is not yet completed. 
Paul adds and your messenger to meet my wants. A quite 
literal rendering of his words would be ‘ and your apostle and 
minister of my need’; but our translation rightly binds the 
two terms together, as Lightfoot also does, to form one idea— 
your messenger to meet my wants. The second of the two 
nouns—‘ minister ’"—is a word of high and holy associations. 
It is the usual word for priest in the LXX ; and is common 
in inscriptions and elsewhere of one who has performed some 
distinguished public service. A cognate noun is used in vers. 
17 and 30 of this chapter of the service rendered by the Philip- 
pians. There is a deliberate choice of sacred and noble words 
to describe Epaphroditus as the envoy of the Philippians, for 
Paul would lift to a lofty plane the service they rendered to 
him. Compare 4:18, where he speaks of their gift as a 
sacrifice to God. The former of the two nouns employed in 
the present passage—‘ apostle ’—is in our translation, as in the 
R.V., fitly rendered messenger. It does not here bear the full 
meaning it acquired in the Christian vocabulary, any more 
than it does in 2 Cor. 8: 23. Theodoret speaks of Epaphroditus 
as the ‘ bishop’ of Philippi, but the title has no sort of justifi- 
cation in our passage. Nor is it necessary, with Moule, to see 
in the use of the word ‘ apostle’ a mark of gentle pleasantry, 
as if Paul thought of Epaphroditus as a missionary bearing to 
him a gospel. 

I think it necessary, says Paul, to send you him at once. 
There is nothing in the Greek answering to at once. Would 
not some such expression have been introduced into the 
present sentence if the paragraph about Timotheus had 
immediately preceded ? May we not see in its absence another 

I2Z1I 


THE EPISTLE OF- PAUL IO°(THEMPHILEIPPIANS 


indication that the earlier paragraph is not original ? The word 
necessary occupies an emphatic position in the Greek as the 
first word of the whole paragraph, showing that Paul is 
anxious to impress upon the Philippians the fact that the 
immediate return of Epaphroditus was in his eyes a matter of 
necessity. It was not a matter of choice. They must not 
blame their envoy for returning now: Paul adjudged it to 
be necessary. The verb in the present clause, though in the 
past tense in the Greek, is rightly rendered by the present I 
think, for it is an example of the common epistolary use of 
the past, the writer placing himself at the point of view of the 
readers as they read the letter. The past tense is surely 
not to be interpreted, as it is interpreted by Adeney in Peake’s 
Commentary, to mean that Epaphroditus has already been 
sent. The manner in which Paul bespeaks for him a cordial 
welcome (vers. 29, 30) almost amounts to a proof that he was 
the bearer of the letter. 

Trapp has his own characteristic explanation of the necessity 
for the immediate return of Epaphroditus. He had been long 
enough away from his pastoral duties at Philippi! ‘It is not 
meet,’ runs his comment, ‘ that a pastor be long absent from 
his people. Moses was away but forty days, and before he 
came again Israel had made them a golden calf. A godly 
minister when he is abroad is like a fish in the air ; whereinto 
if it leap for recreation or necessity, yet it soon returns to his 
own element.’ 

That Paul should have it in his power to decide that Epaph- 
roditus is to return shows that the Philippians had placed their 
messenger at the disposal of the Apostle ; and, further, the 
fact that Paul says to send him, and not ‘ to send him back,’ 
indicates, as Bengel saw, that Epaphroditus had not been sent 
by the Philippians on a brief and hurried mission, but rather 
with the intention that he should remain with the Apostle. 
A smaller man than Paul would have retained him. 

26 Paul now gives the reason for his decision to send Epaph- 
roditus at once: for he has been yearning for you all. The 
rendering he has been yearning reproduces the thought sug- 
gested by the Greek that the yearning had been going on 

122 





CHAPTER II, VERSES 25-30 


for some time. The same verb is used in 1: 8, where Paul 
says, ‘ God is my witness that I yearn for you all ’ (see the note 
there). Some authorities read in our present passage: ‘he 
has been yearning fo see you all.’ So the margin of the R.V. 
The evidence for the two readings is fairly evenly balanced, 
and the difference of meaning is slight. Lightfoot says with 
truth that the language seems to gain in force by the omission 
of the words ‘to see. In Rom. 1:11, r Thess. 3:6, and 
2 Tim. 1: 4 the verb here used for yearning is followed by ‘ to 
see, and it is possible that reminiscence of these passages is 
responsible for the insertion of the infinitive in those authorities 
that have it here. 

The yearning of Epaphroditus is impartial; he yearns for 
them all. Paul makes it clear that their messenger does not 
look with favour upon their divisions. It may be that the 
news of the dissensions had intensified Epaphroditus’ yearning 
to be back. ‘ His heart,’ says Trapp, ‘ was where his calling 
was.’ Far from attempting to stifle this natural yearning, 
Paul countenances and encourages it. 

He has been greatly concerned, continues the Apostle, 
because you heard he was ill. Not only had news of the 
illness of Epaphroditus reached the Philippians: news of their 
consequent distress had reached him. He has been greatly 
concerned is scarcely strong enough as a rendering of the verb 
used by Paul. Elsewhere in the New Testament the verb is 
found only in Mark 14 : 33, and the parallel passage Matt. 26: 
37, where it is used to describe the agitation of our Lord in 
Gethsemane. In the present passage ‘ distressed ’ or ‘agitated ’ 
would have expressed the meaning more exactly. 

Epaphroditus was distressed because his friends had learnt 
of his illness! Even though the sickness had been contracted 
in the execution of their commission, he is grieved because 
they have come to know about it. Their grief distressed him 
more than did his own sickness. They might be disappointed 
because of his premature return, but their hearts could not 
fail to be softened to tenderness when they read Paul’s state- 
ment of his unselfish desire to spare them grief on his account. 

In the Journal of Theological Studies for July 1917 (pp. 311, 

123 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


312) Moffatt calls attention to an analogous case of unselfish 
concern disclosed in a second-century papyrus letter. It is 
one of the Oxyrhynchus papyri—a letter sent by a soldier to 
his mother. She had heard that her son was ill, and he is 
annoyed that she should have been troubled by a report 
that wasexaggerated. True, he had not written to her for some 
time ; but the reason for that was to be found not in his sick- 
ness, but in the pressure of his military duties. ‘So,’ he 
writes, ‘do not grieve about me. I was much grieved to 
hear that you had heard about me, for I was not seriously 
ill.” The two cases are not quite parallel, for the report 
that had reached the Philippians was no exaggeration. ‘ Still,’ 
says Moffatt, ‘both Epaphroditus and this soldier were 
unselfishly concerned about those who cared for them.’ 

27 No, the report which had reached Philippi was not in the 
least degree exaggerated. And he was ill, says Paul, nearly 
dead with illness. The all but fatal nature of the illness is 
emphasized again in ver. 30. It may be that Paul lays all this 
stress on the seriousness of the illness partly because he 
suspected that when Epaphroditus reached Philippi he would 
do his utmost to minimize its gravity, and thereby weaken 
in the eyes of the Philippians the Apostle’s reason for sending 
him back. 

But God had mercy on him. Epaphroditus recovered. Paul 
regards recovery and escape from death as a mercy. Nor has 
he the least doubt that the recovery came from God. So 
Wesley, writing in July 1775 to James Dempster, an American 
preacher, says: “Last month I was at the gates of death. 
But it pleased God just then to rebuke the fever, so that my 
pulse began to beat again, after it had totally ceased. Since 
that time I have gradually been recovering strength, and am 
now nearly as well as ever. Let us use the short residue of life 
to the glory of Him that gave it!’ (Letters, p. 252). The 
closing sentence of Wesley’s letter reminds us of Chrysostom’s 
comment on the present passage (quoted by Moule): 
‘Those who are departed this life can no longer win souls.’ 

The Apostle regards himself as coming within the range of 
the Divine mercy that had brought Epaphroditus back from 

124 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 25-30 


the region of death, for he adds: and not only on him but on 
me, to save me from having one sorrow upon another. Com- 
mentators for the most part assume that Paul has here in 
mind two definite sorrows. His words, however, do not of 
necessity demand so precise an interpretation. He may only 
mean—and so our translation seems to understand his 
words—that the recovery of Epaphroditus saved him from the 
superaddition of one more sorrow to the many that pressed 
upon him already. Still, it is not impossible that he is think- 
ing of two definite sorrows. One, of course, is the sorrow 
that would have resulted from the death of Epaphroditus, 
and the other probably the bitterness of his captivity, rather 
than the anxiety caused by the illness of his devoted helper. 

In the Expositor for November 1916 Moffatt cites the 
interesting passage in the Confessions of Augustine (ix. 3) in 
which use is made of some of the words of this verse. ‘ When,’ 
writes Moffatt, ‘the Milanese scholar, Verecundus, lent his 
villa at Cassiciacum to Augustine, for the purpose of a reli- 
gious retreat, he remained at Rome, unwilling to join the 
party. Shortly afterwards he died, but not before he had 
become a Christian. This sad news reached the party, yet 
they comforted themselves with the thought that he had not 
died outside the pale of the Church. ‘‘ Thus Thou hadst 
mercy not on him only, but on us also, lest we should be 
tortured with unbearable grief as we recalled the kindness of 
our friend to us and yet were unable to count him as one of 
Thy fiock.”’’ 

So, continues Paul, I am specially eager to send him. Here 28 - 
again the epistolary past is used which the R.V. renders ‘I 
have seni.’ See on ver. 25. The present sentence also con- 
tains an adverb, in the comparative degree, which may mean 
either ‘with greater eagerness, referring to the spirit in 
which Paul is sending Epaphroditus, or else ‘with more 
haste,’ referring to the outward manner of his dispatch. It 
may be that both meanings should be found in the word; 
but, if choice has to be made, the context would seem to 
point to the meaning ‘ with more haste’ as the more fitting 
in the present case, the reference being to the fact that 

125 





THE EPISTLE OF “PAUL VLOG ERR EIELE RIAN 


Epaphroditus was being sent with a greater dispatch than the 
Philippians expected or were likely to appreciate. 

The reason for this special hurry is stated in the words that 
you may be glad when you see him again. Our translation is 
at one with the A.V. and the R.V. in taking again with see. 
On the whole, however, the better course is to take it with 
may be glad. ‘ That you ‘‘ may recover your cheerfulness” ’ 
is Lightfoot’s rendering. Their recovered cheerfulness would 
be reflected upon the spirit of the Apostle, for he proceeds to 
expand the reason for his action in the words and thus my 
own anxiety may be lightened. He employs in saying this an 
adjective, occurring nowhere else in the New Testament, into 
the composition of which there enters the Greek word for 
‘grief.’ ‘ Grief’ or ‘sorrow’ would, then, we think, serve to 
express his meaning better than ‘anxiety.’ Paul does not 
say, as the preceding clause might perhaps have led us to 
expect him to say, ‘and thus I too may be glad,’ for, even 
when he should feel the cheering influence of their recovered 
gladness, his own spirit would not be altogether free from 
sorrow. His sorrow would be lightened; it would not 
wholly vanish. Some drops of joy from their overflowing cup 
would find their way to him, helping to compensate for the 
departure of his devoted minister. 

29 The Apostle now in plain entreaty bespeaks for Epaphro- 
ditus a cordial Christian welcome. Give him a welcome in 
the Lord, then—that is, ‘seeing that he is returning at my 
instance, and that I am sending him for your joy, and for the 
alleviation of my own grief.’ The phrase in the Lord suggests 
some amount of apprehension on Paul’s part that the Philip- 
pians, chagrined at Epaphroditus’ premature relinquishment 
of his charge, might fail to welcome him in a spirit worthy of 
their common faith. In Rom. 16:2 Paul himself explains 
the very phrase he uses here ; for he there says with respect 
to Phoebe: ‘ Receive her in the Lord as saints should receive 
one another.’ 

With your hearts full of joy : the welcome is to be whole- 
hearted and abundant. No particle of chagrin or resentment 
is to have a place in their hearts. Joy is to occupy the whole 

126 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 25-30 


space. Literally the words may be rendered ‘ with all joy,’ 
asin the R.V. The sense is not, as some explain, ‘ with every 
kind of joy ’—it is not easy to attach an intelligible meaning 
to such a phrase here—but, ‘ with joy unmixed and unre- 
served,’ or, in the words of our translation, with hearts full of 
joy. 

Value men like that, adds the Apostle. Such characters, 
whenever found, are too precious to be set at naught. The 
idea of honouring, as well as of valuing, is present in the 
Apostle’s words. The Philippians must not only appraise 
such men at their true worth: they must also give them the 
honour which is due to the nobility of their character. It is 
often easy for a Church to value and honour the wrong persons. 
Quiet, unobtrusive workers, even though they be the salt of the 
earth, are apt to be overlooked and lightly valued. Words 
addressed by the Apostle to another Macedonian Church may 
be placed by the side of this injunction. ‘ Brothers,’ he says 
to the Thessalonians, “we beg you to respect those who are 
working among you, presiding over you in the Lord and main- 
taining discipline ; hold them in special esteem and affection, 
for the sake of their work’ (1 Thess. 5:12, 13). Compare 
also Heb. 13: 7. 


After soliciting due esteem and honour for the class of which 30 


Epaphroditus is an example, Paul reverts to the case of 
Epaphroditus to find additional justification for his plea. 
For, he says, he nearly died in the service of Christ, or, more 
literally, ‘ for the work of Christ.’ The authorities are evenly 
balanced between ‘ the work of Christ’ and ‘ the work of the 
Lord.’ One good authority, however, has ‘for the work’ 
simply ; and it is tempting, with Lightfoot and others, to 
regard this as the original reading, in which case the various 
additions will be attempts at explanation or elucidation. In 
Acts 15 : 38—a passage which may well reproduce Paul’s own 
words—‘ the work ’ is used in this absolute way for the work 
of Christ. 

Epaphroditus came near to death. For ‘to death’ Paul 
uses the very phrase he uses in ver. 8 of this chapter when 
he speaks of our Lord being obedient even ‘to death.’ Is 

127 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


there a hint that the spirit of Epaphroditus was akin to the 
spirit of his Master ? Whether or no Paul meant that sugges- 
tion to be conveyed by his words, the spirit of the Cross was 
in the service of the devoted Philippian who came near to 
death by risking his life. In this latter phrase Paul employs 
a participle that comes nowhere else in the New Testament. 
Some scholars have thought that the word may have been 
coined by him. It is another word, differing only by the 
addition of a single letter, that 1s rendered ‘ not regarding’ 
in the A.V. However, the verb actually used by Paul, and 
in the identical participial form here employed, has been 
discovered in an inscription found at Olbia, on the Black Sea. 
(See Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, pp. 84, 85.) 
Epaphroditus had gambled with his life. In Eph. 4:14 Paul 
employs another gaming term which means ‘ playing with 
dice.’ The word ‘ Parabolani,’ the name of an order of 
laymen in the early Church who risked their lives in nursing 
cases of fever and plague, is closely related to the word used 
by Paul for risking in our present passage. It is possible 
that the metaphor of gambling was suggested to Paul by 
the name of Epaphroditus (see the Expository Times for 
October 1925, p. 46). 

In what way did Epaphroditus hazard his life? All the 
Greek commentators say that it was by exposing himself to 
the risk of persecution. But the present verse seems clearly 
to suggest that the reference is rather to the risk of ill-health 
involved in his fervent devotion to the Apostle. Whether 
Paul has in mind any hazard other than that due to his 
labouring beyond his strength can only be a matter of conjec- 
ture. What Paul says here of Epaphroditus reminds us of 
what he says elsewhere of Prisca and Aquila: ‘ Salute Prisca 
and Aquila, my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who have 
risked their lives for me’ (Rom. 16: 3, 4). 

Epaphroditus’ motive in hazarding his life is stated in the 
words to make up for the services you were not here to render 
me. This is a most happy rendering of Paul’s words, far 
superior to the more literal rendering of the R.V.—‘ to supply 
that which was lacking in your service toward me.’ This 

128 


CHAPTER II, VERSES 25-30 


rendering of the R.V. may give to the English reader the 
impression that the Apostle is cavilling at some lack or defect 
in the service of the Philippians. The very opposite is the 
truth. Paul refers to a lack that was unavoidable, the lack, 
that is, of their personal presence; and in the very words 
by which he pays high tribute to the devotion of Epaphroditus 
he deitly tells the Philippians that by sending him they 
had done much to offset the lack which they could not help. 
There is no suggestion of remissness on their part. Paul 
indeed ernmploys a word (cognate with the word ‘ minister ’ 
applied to Epaphroditus in ver. 25) that speaks of the service 
of the Philippians as a sacred ministration. Epaphroditus 
had done his best to represent them all; and the effort had 
proved too much for his strength. What is here said of 
Epaphroditus implies most clearly that he was one of the 
Philippians ; the Apostle would hardly have spoken to the 
Philippians of Epaphras the Colossian as he speaks here of 


Epaphroditus. 
| CHAPTER III 
| A WARNING AND A NEW STANDARD OF VALUES 
(111. 10-7) 


I am repeating this word ‘ rejoice’ in my letter, but that does 1} 
not tire me and it is the safe course for you.—Beware 2 
of these dogs, these wicked workmen, the incision-party |! 
We are the true Circumcision, we who worship God in 3 
spirit, we who pride ourselves on Christ Jesus, we who 
rely upon no outward privilege. Though I could rely 4 
on outward privilege, if I chose. Whoever thinks he can 
rely on that, f can outdo him. I was circumcised on the 5 
eighth day aiter birth ; I belonged to the race of Israel, 
to the tribe of Benjamin ; I was the Hebrew son of Hebrew 
parents, a Pharisee as regards the Law, in point of ardour 6 
a persecutor of the church, immaculate by the standard 
of legal righteousness. But for Christ’s sake I have 7 
learned to count my former gains a loss. 

129 





THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


We have already in the Introduction (see pp. xi, xii) given 
reasons for believing that vers. 1b-19 of chap. 3 did not 
originally form part of the present epistle to the Philippians. 
They may have formed part of an earlier letter sent to Philippi, 
or of a letter addressed to some other Church. There can be 
no manner of doubt regarding their authorship; and if we 
are right in thinking that they form no part of the present 
letter, that does not detract from their worth in the slightest 
degree. We shall take ver. 1a after vers. 10-19, along with 
Sa2O Met and sa sr. 

1b Ver. 1b has been the subject of much discussion. It will 
help us if we approach the study of it from the quite literal 
rendering of the R.V., which runs thus: ‘ To write the same 
things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is 
safe.’ Paul does not say what the things are which he is 
repeating. Our translation—I am repeating this word 
‘ rejoice ’ in my letter—adopts one of several possible interpre- 
tations. Whether that is the most probable interpretation 
or not we shall have to inquire. Before we do that, let us 
glance at the words in which Paul makes his half-apologetic 
reference to the reiteration. He says it is not irksome to 
him to repeat, but that it is the safe course for his readers. 
Clearly he is solicitous lest the readers should be annoyed 
by the repetition. It is possible that he is using a line from 
some poem, for the words form the metrical line known as the 
iambic trimeter. Moule, with a view to the rhythm, renders 
thus: ‘To me not irksome, it is safe for you.” The word 
translated ‘irksome’ usually means ‘hesitating, shrinking, 
dilatory, sluggish.’ Some such meaning it bears in its other 
New Testament occurrences in Matt. 25 : 26 and Rom. 12: 11. 
Here, however, it must mean ‘ causing hesitation or weariness.’ 
That, says Paul, does not tire me. 

Paul was alive to the need of repeating his admonitions. 
‘It is not sufficiently considered,’ writes Dr. Johnson in the 
Rambler, ‘that men more frequently require to be reminded 
than informed ’ (quoted by Moffatt in the Expositor, November 
1916, p. 347). ‘ Men,’ comments Trapp on this verse, ‘ are dull 
to conceive, hard to believe, apt to forget, and slow to practise 

130 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 16-7 


heavenly truths, and had therefore great need to have them 
much pressed and often inculcated.’ 

Let us now ask ourselves what it is that Paul is reiterating. 
What are the ‘same things’ of which he speaks? Let us 
suppose for the moment that the letter as we have it is just as 
it came from his hand. Evidently it is possible to regard the 
words which we are now examining as referring either to what 
Paul has just said in ver. 14a, or else to what he is about to say 
in vers. 2 ff. Some scholars adopt the former of these alterna- 
tives, in which case the ‘ same things ’ which Paul is reiterating 
will refer to the injunction to rejoice. That he uses the plural, 
“the same things,’ is no objection to this view. This is the 
interpretation adopted in our translation, and it is the view 
of Baur, Alford, Ellicott, and many others. But while it is 
true that the note of joy is sounded throughout the epistle, 
not until we come to 3: 1a do we find a direct injunction to 
rejoice. It is possible, of course, that in previous letters 
Paul may have urged upon the Philippians the duty of re- 
joicing, and that with so much persistence that he thinks it 
necessary to apologize for repeating the injunction in the 
present letter. But while this is possible, it is surely in the 
highest degree improbable. One brief reference would not 
lead him to apologize. Lightfoot observes that ‘such an 
injunction has no very direct bearing on the safety of the 
Philippians,’ and that ‘ its repetition could hardly be suspected 
of being izvksome to the Apostle. But over against the former 
of these statements there are certain considerations that may 
be adduced. ‘It is surely conceivable,’ writes Moffatt, ‘ that 
Paul would regard any failure to “‘ rejoice in the Lord”’ asa 
dangerous symptom. . . . It is never safe to grow dispirited. 
Christians need to be warned against the temper of melancholy 
and dulness as much as against false doctrines. Any failure 
to “‘ rejoice in the Lord ’”’ means an imperfect sense of what 
he is to us, and it is always a safe thing to be warned of this 
inward danger’ (Expositor, November 1916, p. 347). 

The other alternative is to regard ver. 16 as an introduction 
to the warning given in vers. 2 ff. That warning may have 
been given repeatedly in previous letters, and it has an evident 

131 


THE EPISTLE OENRAUOLS TO SPAR SEAT? Pin 


bearing upon the safety of those to whom it is addressed. 
Moffatt (loc. cit.) concedes that this may be the true inter- 
pretation. 

Lightfoot rejects both ot these alternatives and suggests 
another explanation. In his view, the reference is to the 
warnings against the dissensions that existed among the 
Philippians. ‘ This topic,” he says, ‘either directly or in- 
directly has occupied a very considerable portion of the letter 
hitherto; and it appears again more than once before the 
close.’ If it be retorted that there is no warning against 
dissension in the immediate vicinity of 3:1, Lightfoot’s 
answer to the objection is that the Apostie was just about to 
reintroduce the subject when he was interrupted. This sug- 
gestion of interruption, however, is but a theory, admitting 
neither of proof nor of refutation. 

So far we have been assuming that vers. 15-19 torm part of 
the original letter. As a matter of fact we think they should 
be detached from their present context. They form a frag- 
ment of a Pauline letter sent to some correspondents whom 
we cannot identify. If in that letter the words of ver. 15 
served as an introduction to the warning that follows them, 
then we know that in the earlier portions of that letter, or in 
previous letters to the same correspondents, the Apostle had 
repeatedly issued warnings against the ‘dogs’ to whom he 
refers in vers. 2 ff. If, on the other hand, the words of 16 
refer to warnings which had preceded them in the original 
letter, then we have no means of knowing what the ‘same 
things ’ are. Whether vers. rb-19 be an interpolation or not, 
we incline to the view that ver. 15 should be connected with 
the warning that follows in vers. 2 ff. Otherwise ver. 2 is 
introduced somewhat abruptly and awkwardly. Ifthe passage 
is an interpolation, the mere fact that ver. 1b has survived 
as a part of it would point to an original close connexion with 
the words that follow. 

Now comes the warning: Beware of these dogs, these 
wicked workmen, the incision-party! Before we examine 
these words in detail, it may be well to clear the ground by 
considering in a general way who these persons are against 

132 





CHAPTER III, VERSES 1b-7 


whom Paul is warning his readers. We may summarily 
dismiss the view which identifies them with the preachers 
condemned in 1:15 ff. ‘ Thev have nothing to do with the 
evangelists mentioned in 1:15 f.; the latter preach Christ 
truly ; it is their motives, not the content of their gospel, to 
which Paul takes exception (Moffatt, Introduction to the 
Literature of the N.T., p. 166). Everything points to their 
being Jews. But were they Jews unaffected by the Christian 
faith, void of all sympathy with it, and intolerant in their 
attitude to those who professed it ? Or were they Judaizers, 
that is, Jews who had adopted the new faith but were seeking 
to impose upon all converts, Gentile as well as Jewish, the 
burden of Jewish ritual, teaching that apart from circum- 
cision there could be no access to God? The context permits 
us to hold either of these views. Adeney (in Peake’s Com- 
mentary) declares categorically that they were not Judaizing 
Christians, but ‘simply Jews antagonistic to Christianity.’ 
It may be that the Christians to whom Paul is writing were 
suffering grievously at the hands of persecuting Jews and 
sorely tempted to slide back into Judaism. The fact that the 
Apostle in his list of the outward privileges in which he could 
outmatch his antagonists includes his quondam persecution of 
the Church (ver. 6) lends some countenance to this view. 
The great majority of commentators, however, assume with 
little or no discussion of the question, that the persons against 
whom the warning is uttered are Judaizers. On the whole, 
this is the more likely view. The things which the Judaizers 
would seek to impose upon Christians were the very things 
which the non-Christian Jews valued most highly. The mere 
fact that Paul with deliberation sets forth the superiority of 
the new way of righteousness in Christ would suggest that he 
is warning his readers against opponents whose weapon is 
persuasion rather than persecution. Contrast the manner in 
which persecuting Jews are denounced in 1 Thess. 2:15, 16. 
His method of dealing with his opponents in our present 
passage is more closely akin to his method in Galatians and 
2 Corinthians, where beyond question the Judaizers are the 
objects of his attack. The machinations of the Judaizers, 


133 


THE EPISTLE CORSPAUL TOW AE ERILIP EI ANS 


who so persistently harassed Paul and his converts, consti- 
tuted the chief peril to which the earliest Christians were 
exposed. 

The word rendered beware in this verse literally means ‘ to 
observe, look at.’ The readers are to observe in order to be 
on their guard against the peril. The Judaizing propaganda 
had not, seemingly, made much headway among them. And 
yet the repetition of the verb in each of the three clauses of 
this verse shows that to the Apostle’s mind the danger was 
very real. It would have been an advantage if in our trans- 
lation the impressive triple repetition of the imperative had 
been reproduced: ‘Beware of these dogs! Beware of 
these wicked workmen! Beware of this incision-party ! ’ 

By more than one expositor the three clauses of this verse 
have been supposed to refer to three distinct and separate 
classes of antagonists. B. Weiss, for example, understands 
Paul to be speaking of the unconverted heathen, the self- 
seeking teachers of 1: 15 ff., and the unbelieving Jews. The 
vast majority of interpreters, however, rightly assume that 
the three clauses refer to the same persons. 

These dogs! Why does Paul use this discourteous term ? 
Nowhere else in his extant letters is the word to be found. 
Indeed in the whole of the New Testament the ordinary 
word for ‘dog’ occurs only five times. Whenever the dog 
is mentioned in the Bible, it is with contempt. Each of the 
odious and repulsive characteristics of the eastern dog has 
been supposed to be the one uppermost in Paul’s mind in 
the present comparison—impurity, insolence, cunning, shame- 
lessness, greediness, and so on. It may be, however, that 
the Apostle employs the word as a general term of reproach, 
as Jews and Greeks alike were wont to use it. In ver. 8 of this 
chapter Paul speaks of the things held in veneration by these 
persons as ‘ refuse,’ and it may be that the same idea under- 
lies his use of the term ‘ dogs.’ The things on which they live 
are but refuse and sweepings! They devour, as Lightfoot 
puts it, ‘the garbage of carnal ordinances.’ The Christians 
who would not submit to their ordinances were placed by 
the Judaizers outside the pale of God’s family. They them- 


134 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 16-7 


selves were the children, all else were no better than dogs. 
‘ And now Paul takes up the figure, and reverses the applica- 
tion. ‘‘Nay, nay!” cried the Apostle, “‘ you are living 
in the outside of things. You are magnifying ceremonies 
and ordinances and institutions. You are dwelling in the 
external. Yes, you are in the streets. You are the dogs” ’ 
(Jowett, Apostolic Optimism, p. 38). 

These wicked workmen. ‘ False workmen’ he calls them 
in 2 Cor. 11:13. Kennedy finds in this description of them 
clear evidence that they were within the Christian Church ; 
that is, they were Judaizers and not Jews merely. Christian 
workers in a sense they were, but they were not worthy of 
the title. Trench says of the epithet applied to them in 
this clause that it ‘ affirms of that which it characterizes that 
qualities and conditions are wanting there which would 
constitute it worthy of the name which it bears’ (Synonyms, 
p. 315). 

The incision-party. Both the A.V. and the R.V. have ‘ the 
concision.’ Paul uses here a noun found nowhere else in the 
New Testament. It means a cutting, a mutilation, an incision. 
The abstract term is used for the concrete, and is well rendered 
by the phrase the incision-party. There is an evident play 
upon words, such as is found in other places in the epistles of 
Paul. The Apostle would not and could not apply to the 
Judaizers the term ‘ circumcision’ (peritome), seeing that it 
‘ though now abrogated in Christ had still its spiritual aspects ’ 
(Ellicott) ; so he calls them the incision (Rkatatomé). The 
cognate verb is used in the LXX of the mutilations that 
were forbidden by the Law, asin Lev. 21: 5; and it isemployed 
in 1 Kings 18:28 of the self-inflicted mutilations of the 
prophets of Baal. The noun is used of ordinary, literal cutting 
in the papyri and elsewhere. The Judaizers’ carnal, unspirit- 
ual view of circumcision, the rite in which they gloried and 
which they were eager to foist on all Christian converts 
turned it into a mere incision, a mere laceration with no more 
spiritual meaning and value than the wounds of the prophets 
of Baal. 

Paul now explains why he cannot speak of the Judaizers as 3 


135 





THE EPISTLE ORVPAULVTO WHESeaIi iPr iaas 


the circumcision-party. The rite, it is true, was cardinal in 
their view ; and yet he deliberately refuses to apply the term 
to them, using instead this other term of bitter sarcasm— 
the incision-party! Why does he deny to them the name 
which they would have chosen for themselves? Because in 
his view they had forfeited their right to that name. The 
right had passed to others. ‘I can only call them,’ he seems 
to say, ‘the incision-party ; I cannot call them the circum- 
cision-party for we—you and I and all true Christians—are 
the true Circumcision.’ There is emphasis on the word we— 
we (not they) are the true Circumcision. 

Circumcision was the symbolic rite of the covenant existing 
between Yahweh and His people Israel. It had vaiue and 
significance only as a symbol of the covenant-relation. There 
was, however, a persistent tendency to make it a thing of 
value in itself, something other than the mere sign that it 
actually was. The Judaizers were Jewish Christians who 
had brought this unwholesome tendency with them from 
Judaism even into the Christian Church. Their attitude to 
circumcision was proof that they were blind to its real character. 
To exalt a rite to a place of pre-eminence is to destroy that rite. 
The Judaizers were strangers to the true secret of the new 
life of freedom in Christ. Such men had no place in the new 
covenant. Paul and those of like mind were the ones who 
appreciated and enjoyed the blessings symbolized by circum- 
cision. The rite as a rite had been abrogated in Christ, 
but the things for which it stood remained, having found in 
him their consummation and their glory. So they who were 
‘in Christ ’ were the true Circumcision. The Judaizers had no 
right to the name. 

The great spiritual teachers of Israel were ever insisting on 
the truth that it was the spirit behind the symbol that 
mattered, and not the symbol itself. This is the lesson taught 
by some of the sublimest utterances of the Old Testament. 
See Deut. 10:16, 30:6; Jer. 4:4. The inutility of the 
mere outward rite finds frequent expression in the letters of 
Paul. ‘He is no Jew,’ he writes to the Romans, ‘ who is 
merely a Jew outwardly, nor is circumcision something 

136 


Sounnennenietiniemaiatiatit i aibemnienet 
Soe ct ae oe 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 1b-7 


outward in the flesh; he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and 
circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual not literal— 
praised by God, not by man’ (Rom. 2: 28, 29). He tells the 
Colossians that they ‘ have been circumcised with no material 
circumcision that cuts flesh from the body, but with Christ’s 
own circumcision ’ (Col. 2: 11). 

The remainder of this verse consists of three clauses which 
explain who the we are, and set forth the characteristics of 
those who are worthy to be called the true Circumcision. In 
the Greek the clauses are participial, and there is only one 
article with the three participles, showing that the three 
clauses are to be taken closely together as component parts 
of the description. Who are the true Circumcision? We 
who worship God in spirit, we who pride ourselves on Christ 
Jesus, we who rely upon no outward privilege. 

We who worship God in spirit. The word here used for 
worship originally meant ‘to serve for hire.’ It spoke of a 
service rendered not of compulsion, but spontaneously and 
willingly. For that reason it came to be used of the service 
rendered to the gods. In Biblical Greek it refers without 
exception to the service of the true God or of heathen deities. 
In our present passage the R.V. has ‘ who worship by the 
Spirit of God,’ following a slightly different text for which the 
authority is decidedly stronger than for the text followed in 
our translation. This same verb ‘ to worship’ is used abso- 
lutely, that is, without an expressed object, in Luke 2: 37, 
Acts 26:7, Heb. 9:9, 10:2, a fact which may be regarded 
as giving support to the text followed by the R.V. Still, it is 
possible that the other text, the one underlying our transla- 
tion, 1s the true and original text. The analogous construction 
in Rom. 1: 9 perhaps favours it, for there Paul speaks of God 
as the God ‘whom I serve in my spirit.’ The Apostle’s 
meaning in our clause may well be that the worship of the true 
Christian is offered in the domain of the spirit, not in the 
realm of external rite and ceremony as is that of the Judaizers. 
If this be his meaning, he would at the same time think of this 
worship as made possible by the impulse of the Divine Spirit, 
so that both our translation and that of the R.V. may accord 


137 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


with the thought that was in the Apostle’s mind. The worship 
of the Judaizers had its being in the realm of things external, 
lacking the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, that ‘ gracious 
power of God which evoked faith in Jesus as the crucified and 
risen Christ and then mediated to the receptive, obedient life: 
all that the Lord was and did for his own people’ (Moffatt, 
Paul and Paulinism, pp. 36, 37). Compare John 4: 24. 

We who pride ourselves on Christ Jesus. The verb used in 
this clause is one of Paul’s favourite and characteristic words. 
Though this is its solitary occurrence in our epistle, it is found 
over thirty times in his letters, and twice only in the remaining 
books of the New Testament. A cognate noun is used in 
1:26 and 2:16 of our epistle. In the present passage the 
A.V. has ‘ rejoice,’ and the R.V. ‘glory.’ If the rendering of 
our translation is to be adequate, we must give to the word 
‘ pride’ its noblest meaning. Perhaps ‘ exult ’ brings out the 
sense as well as any single English word can bring it out. 
The word speaks of the triumphant, exulting mood of those 
who in Christ have discovered the secret of life and joy. Itis 
the word used in Rom. 5: 11, where Paul says, ‘ We triumph 
in God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ ; and also in Gal. 
6:13, 14, where there is the same kind of contrast with the 
Judaizers that we have in our present passage. ‘ Why,’ says 
the Apostle to the Galatians, ‘ even the circumcision-party do 
not observe the Law themselves! They merely want you to 
get circumcised, so as to boast over your flesh! But no 
boasting for me, none except in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I 
crucified to the world.’ 

We who rely upon no outward privilege. This is the very 
opposite of what the Judaizers are doing; they rely upon a 
rite—an outward privilege—for justification with God. That 
is the broken reed on which they lean. Outward privilege in 
this clause translates the ordinary Greek word for ‘ flesh,’ and 
the rendering is fully justified. ‘Flesh’ in Paul stands for the 
lower side of human nature, the seat and vehicle of evil, hostile 
to God and His will. By a natural extension or transference 
of its meaning the word came to stand for any and all of the 

138 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 1b-7 


things in which that evil nature seeks to find satisfaction. 
Vers. 4 ff. bring before us the kind of things Paul has specially 
in mind in the present clause. It may be that he is thinking 
chiefly of circumcision, but the word covers such things as 
descent, nationality, and even legal righteousness. As Calvin 
puts it, ‘Carnem appellat quidquid est extra Christum.’ 
Compare 2 Cor. 11: 18. 

The closing part of the description which he has just given 4 
of the true Circumcision reminds the Apostle that all the out- 
ward privileges on which the Judaizers rely were present, or 
had been present, in his own case in a pre-eminent degree. 
It is sometimes said that he singles out his own case because 
the Philippians, being Gentiles, would not possess these grounds 
of confidence, whereas he himself did possess them. If, how- 
ever, these verses were not originally part of our epistle, they 
may for aught we know have been addressed to some Jewish 
Christians. It is more probable that Paul specifies his own 
case to prevent his readers from thinking that he disparages 
these outward privileges just because he does not possess 
them. The Judaizers may have hinted that envy lay at the 
root of his attitude. 

Though, he says, I could rely on outward privilege, if I chose. 
According to the strict, literal meaning of his words, he seems 
to say that he is actually so relying ; but the whole context 
makes it clear that that cannot be the sense intended. We 
are bound to give to his words some such meaning as is given 
to them in our translation. ‘The Apostle,’ observes Light- 
foot, ‘for the moment places himself on the same standing- 
ground with the Judaizers and, adopting their language, speaks 
of himself as having that which in fact he had renounced.’ 
With the present passage we should compare 2 Cor. 11: 18 ff. 

Without a trace of misgiving the Apostle goes on to say that 
none of the Judaizers had as much right to rely on outward 
privilege as he himself had. Whoever thinks he can rely on 
that, I can outdo him. Then follows a catalogue of the things 
in which he might have boasted had he been so disposed 
(vers. 5 and 6). As we read the list we are reminded by con- 
trast of the way in which Bunyan disclaims for himself all such 


139 





THE EPISTLE OF \ PAUL TOS THESPHILIPPEANG 


possible grounds for boasting: ‘ For my Descent then, it was, 
as is well known by many, of a low and inconsiderable Genera- 
tion ; my Father’s House being of that Rank that is meanest 
and most despised of all the Families in the Land. Wherefore 
I have not here, as others, to boast of noble Blood or of a high- 
born State according to the Flesh; though, all things con- 
sidered, I magnify the heavenly Majesty, for that by this door 
he brought me into this world, to partake of the Grace and 
Life that is in Christ by the Gospel’ (Grace Abounding, § 2). 

5 The various items of outward privilege are now enumerated, 
and in so terse a manner that (as Bengel observes) Paul 
might have been counting them on his fingers. 

I was circumcised on the eighth day after birth. He begins 
with the rite that was central in the scheme of the Judaizers. 
Circumcision was the outward privilege on which above all 
others they relied. And Paul had been circumcised! Yes, 
on the eighth day after birth—the day named in the Law for 
the circumcision of native-born Jews (see Gen. 17:12, Lev. 
12:3). No Ishmaelite he, for the Ishmaelites were not 
circumcised before they had reached their thirteenth year 
(compare Gen. 17:25). Nor was Paul a proselyte born of 
heathen parents. He was born within the pale of Judaism, of 
parents punctilious in their observance of the letter of the 
Law. 

I belonged to the race of Israel. In these words the Apostle 
claims direct Israelitic descent. ‘His parents were not 
grafted into the covenant people, but descended from the 
original stock’ (Lightfoot). The preceding clause declared 
that his parents were not heathen; the present clause tells 
that they were not proselytes. Israel was the covenant-name 
of the people of Yahweh. We are reminded of 2 Cor. 11 : 22: 
‘Are they Hebrews? so am I. Israelites? so am I.’ Com- 
pare, too, Rom. 11:1: ‘Then, I ask, has God repudiated 
his People? Never! Why, I am an Israelite myself, a 
descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin !’ 

As in this verse from Romans, so in our present passage the 
Apostle specifies the tribe to which he belonged. Not every 
Jew at that time knew to what tribe he belonged. Paul 

140 





CHAPTER III, VERSES 16-7 


belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. The tribe of Judah itself 
was scarce more honourable than the tribe of Benjamin. 
Benjamin was the child of Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob 
(see Gen. 35: 16-18). He alone of the sons of Jacob was 
born in the Land of Promise. The tribe of Benjamin alone 
remained faithful to Judah and the house of David at the 
time of the disruption (1 Kings 12:21); and it alone with 
Judah formed the nucleus of the new settlement in Palestine 
after the return from the Exile (Ezra 4:1). Ehud, the left- 
handed hero whose story is told in Judges 3 : 12-30, was a 
Benjamite ; so also was Mordecai, the deliverer of the Jews in 
the Book of Esther. Greater than either of these was Saul, 
the nation’s first king, who also belonged to the tmbe of 
Benjamin (compare Acts 13:21). The Holy City stood 
within the borders of the tribe of Benjamin. To this tribe 
was assigned the post of honour in the armies of the nation: 
“Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: 
sound an alarm at Beth-aven; behind thee, O Benjamin’ 
(Hosea 5:8). Compare Judges5:14. The words of Jacob’s 
prophetic blessing of Benjamin recorded in Gen. 49: 27— 
‘Benjamin is a wolf that ravineth: In the morning he shall 
devour the prey, and at even he shall divide the spoil ’— 
came to be applied to Paul. Tertullian, for example, in his 
Adversus Marcionem (v. 1), states that Jacob ‘ foresaw that 
Paul would spring from Benjamin, “‘ a ravening wolf, devour- 
ing his prey in the morning ’’: that is, in early life he would 
lay waste the flocks of God as a persecutor of the Churches ; 
then towards evening he would provide food: that is, in his 
declining years he would train the sheep of Christ as a teacher 
of the nations ’ (Moffatt, Paul and Paulinism, pp. I, 2). 

I was the Hebrew son of Hebrew parents. This rendering 
is much to be preferred to that of the R.V., ‘a Hebrew of 
Hebrews,’ for this latter phrase is hable to be understood in 
the sense of ‘a Hebrew of superior eminence,’ whereas the 
preposition ‘of’ means ‘descended from.’ Paul may be 
referring not merely to his immediate parents, but to his 
ancestry as a whole, for the phrase may mean ‘a Hebrew 
of Hebrew ancestry.’ Already in the words I belonged to the 

141 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PRILIPPIANS 


race of Israel the Apostle has claimed direct Israelitic descent. 
What more does he claim for himself in the present clause ? 
Whenever the word ‘ Hebrew’ is used in the Old Testament 
of the chosen race, the idea of contrast to or distinction from 
other nations is present. In the New Testament the term 
bears a narrower meaning. Both ‘ Hellenists ’ and ‘ Hebrews’ 
are Jews, the difference between them being that the former 
are Jews who speak Greek, whereas the latter are Jews who, 
whether dwelling in Palestine or not, continue to use Hebrew 
(or Aramaic). Later, it is true, we find the term ‘ Hebrew’ 
applied to Greek-speaking Jews, but Paul employs it here 
in the narrower sense. He belonged to a family that held 
fast to the old tongue. How long the family had lived in 
Tarsus we do not know; but even there it had maintained 
its devotion to the Aramaic language ; we know that Paul 
himself spoke it (see Acts 21:40, 22:2, 26:14). Along 
with the language many old customs and habits would doubt- 
less be retained. Proudly does Paul declare himself to be 
the Hebrew son of Hebrew parents. 

Of the four items thus far enumerated not one depended 
upon Paul’s own choice. Now come three other distinctions, 
each of which is the product of his own volition. 

A Pharisee as regards the Law. The word ‘ law’ is without 
the article in the Greek, but our translation is right in referring 
it to the Mosaic Law, which is always with Paul the great 
embodiment of the conception of law. It was upon their 
fidelity to the Law that the Judaizers prided themselves ; 
its authority was the one thing on which they insisted. How 
did Paul fare in this regard ? What attitude had he assumed 
to the Law? As regards the Law he was a Pharisee! What 
more perfect proof could he adduce of his devotion to the 
Law? The complete and exact fulfilment of its demands 
was the raison d’étre of the Pharisaic party; and this was 
the party to which Paul had attached himself! We remember 
how he shouted to the members of the Sanhedrin, ‘I am a 
Pharisee, brothers, the son of Pharisees!’ (Acts 23: 6), and 
how a short time before in his address to the people he had 
declared that he was ‘ educated at the feet of Gamaliel in all 


142 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 1b-7 


the strictness of our ancestral Law ’ (Acts 22:3). As he stood 
before king Agrippa, he said of the Jews: ‘ They know, if 
they chose to admit it, that as a Pharisee I lived by the prin- 
ciples of the strictest party in our religion’ (Acts 26: 5). No 
Judaizer could lay claim to completer devotion to the Law 
than was involved in being a Pharisee. 

But had he manifested any fervour in his devotion to the 
faith of his fathers? Here again the Apostle challenges 
comparison with his traducers. In point of ardour, he says, 
a persecutor of the church. We can imagine with what sad 
irony these words were written. As Lightfoot puts it, he is 
condemning while he seems to exalt his former self. Had any 
of the Judaizers done more to prove their ardour than he had 
done? The word ‘ecclesia’ which he here uses embodies 
the conception of the Church as the true heir and successor of 
the chosen race. In his blindness he had persecuted the 
‘ecclesia’! (See Acts 9:1, 2.) Paul never ceased to be 
mortified by the recollection of his persecution of the Church. 
The note of bitter remorse can be heard in his words to the 
Corinthians: ‘ For I am the very least of the apostles, unfit 
to bear the name of apostle, since I persecuted the church of 
God’ (1 Cor. 15: 9). Compare also Acts 22: 4,5; 26: 9-11, 
Gal) %13; 143 reTimyr 213. 

Pharisee though he was, vehement as had been his ardour, 
had he in actual practice met all the demands of the Law 
in his search for mghteousness before God? Even by this 
microscopic test he stands approved, for he can say of himself 
that he was immaculate by the standard of legal righteous- 
ness. Like the young ruler in the Gospel story, he could 
claim to have observed all the commands of the Law (Mark 
Io: 20= Matt. 19: 20= Luke 18:21). There was no flaw 
in his observance. He had left nothing undone. 

All this the Apostle could claim for himself. But, he adds 
with dramatic abruptness, for Christ’s sake I have learned to 
count my former gains a loss. Notice the contrast between 
gains in the plural and loss in the singular. Each of the out- 
ward privileges in his catalogue had at one time been in his 
view a distinct and separate gain; now he ties them all up, 


143 


8 


IO 


It 


THE EPISTLE (OF (PAGE TOO PRESPHILI Tr igngs 


so to speak, in one bundle and labels them a loss! Once they 
were separate items of profit : now they form one item of loss. 
Loss, be it noticed ; for they are worse than useless. They are 
actually a hindrance, standing in the way of him who seeks the 
only true and satisfying righteousness, the righteousness that 
is in Christ. They bar the way by fostering a spirit of self- 
righteousness. | 

I have learned—the form of expression points to some 
moment at which the old standard of values passed away and 
the new took its place. And what moment can that have been 
but the moment of enlightenment on the way to Damascus ? 
The form of expression also speaks of the continued supremacy 
of the new standard: from that moment on the Damascus 
road he has never wavered in his fidelity to the decision then 
made. There is no suggestion of regret at the surrender of 
things once valued so highly. That surrender had been made 
for Christ’s sake, or as the Apostle puts it in the next verse, 
“in order to gain Christ.” He had gained much more than he 
had lost. 


Loss AND GAIN (111. 8-11) 


Indeed I count anything a loss, compared to the supreme value 
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have 
lost everything (I count it all the veriest refuse) in order 
to gain Christ and be found at death in him, possessing 
no legal righteousness of my own but the righteousness of 
faith in Christ, the divine righteousness that rests on faith, 
I would know him in the power of his resurrection and the 
fellowship of his sufferings, with my nature transformed to 
die as he died, to see if I too can attain the resurrection 
from the dead. 


In the last paragraph Paul has enumerated various items of 
outward privilege on which he once relied, and could still rely 
if he were so disposed (vers. 5, 6). Then comes the great 
declaration that for Christ’s sake he has learned to count these 
former gains a loss. This declaration he now proceeds to 
amplify. 

144 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 8-11 


Indeed, he says, I count anything a loss, compared to the 8 


supreme value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. The word 
indeed denotes that in the Apostle’s view the statement of 
ver. 7 is inadequate: he is constrained to supplement and 
reinforce it. In the opening clause of ver. 8 he employs the 
present tense (I count), and not the perfect asin ver. 7. Also, 
he now speaks of counting anything a loss. Some think that 
in both these respects he is deliberately varying or expanding 
the statement of ver. 7. Others think that the only variation 
intended by Paul just here is that represented by the change 
in the tense of the verb. This is the view of Ellicott, who 
takes anything in ver. 8 to mean simply any one of the things 
mentioned in vers. 5 and 6. Still another view is that the only 
advance in the first clause of ver. 8 as compared with ver. 7 is 
that now Paul makes it clear that the things which he counts 
a loss are not confined to the items already given. This last 
is, we think, the nght view. Paui is not emphasizing the fact 
that he still regards things in a certain way. What he does 
is to enlarge the bounds of his statement so as to include, not 
merely the things which at one time had been his ground of 
confidence, but all things whatsoever. Nothing car compete 
with Christ for his allegiance ; nothing can alter the judgment 
which he formed when he found him. 

He counts anything a loss, he says, compared to the supreme 
value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Both the A.V. and 
the R.V. have ‘ for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus my Lord.’ It is difficult to see how in this clause the 
preposition ‘for’ can bear the meaning ‘for the sake of’ 
which some scholars would give to it, seeing that Paul does 
not say ‘for the knowledge,’ but ‘ for the excellency of the 
knowledge.’ Our translation is undoubtedly right in render- 
ing compared to the supreme value of knowing Christ Jesus my 
Lord. The supreme value of knowing him renders everything 
else worthless in comparison. It goes without saying that the 
knowledge of which Paul speaks is more than an intellectual 
apprehension of truth concerning Christ Jesus. ‘It reaches,’ 
as Jones puts it, ‘far beyond mere intellectual knowledge, 
includes faith, service, and sacrifice, and is analogous to the 


145 


THE EPISTLE OPV PAUL TOPPA ESE ALLELE EP EANS 


familiar Pauline phrase ‘‘ to be in Christ.’””’ Most impressive 
is the use bv the Apostle of the full name and title Christ Jesus 
my Lord. He speaks of knowing him in the fullness of all that 
he is and all that he does for men. Impressive also is the use 
of the pronominal adjective my, which speaks at the same 
time of personal surrender and of personal appropriation. 

This is with Paul no empty vaunt, nor do his words speak of 
a merely abstract or academic comparison of values. Not only 
does he count everything a loss for Christ’s sake: for his sake 
he has actually suffered the loss of everything. For his sake 
I have lost everything. Everything! The expression is not 
quite the same as that rendered anything in the preceding 
sentence. It pictures the things of which Paul has suffered 
loss, not as separate items, but as one collective whole. It is 
permissible to draw from the tense of the verb in the present 
sentence the inference that the Apostle has in mind some 
definite moment at which he suffered the loss of everything ; 
and that can only be the moment of his conversion. Further, 
the verb is in the passive voice, and it is sometimes maintained 
that by the use of the passive the Apostle is drawing attention 
to the overwhelming power of the new forces that came into 
play at his conversion, when he was mulcted of everything, 
having, as it were, no choice but to surrender. This thought 
must not, however, be pressed too far, for, seeing that Paul 
proceeds to dilate upon the motive by which he was actuated, 
it is evident that the voluntary character of the surrender is 
not absent from his mind. 

Does the Apostle in any way regret the surrender? Does 
his heart conceal any secret misgiving as to the wisdom of the 
course he has taken, any secret longing after the things he has 
lost? By no manner of means! Lest any such thought 
should arise in the minds of his readers he hastens to add: 
I count it all the veriest refuse. Our translation takes these 
words as a parenthesis in order to bring the statement of pur- 
pose that follows into dependence upon the words for his sake 
I have lost everything which precede. The run of the Greek, 
however, would seem to be against this; and would it not be 
slightly tautological to say in the same sentence ‘ for his sake 

146 


GHAPTER Gil, VERSES) 8:11 


I have lost everything 1m order to gain Chnist’? The state- 
ment of purpose, commencing with the words in order to gain 
Christ, is dependent, we think, on all that precedes it in ver. 8. 
The decision which Paul made at his conversion as well as his 
attitude of mind ever since that momentous occurrence—all 
was and is in order that he might gain Christ. 

The Greek word that underlies the expression the veriest 
refuse is found nowhere else in the New Testament. The A.V. 
and the text of the R.V. both have ‘dung’; the margin of 
the R.V. has ‘refuse.’ These two renderings correspond 
with two suggested derivations of the word. Whichever be 
the true derivation, the word means ‘ food that is rejected,’ 
in one case food rejected by the body as lacking nutriment, 
in the other food rejected as unfit for the table and thrown 
to the dogs. The latter meaning would seem to suit the 
present context better than the former, especially if Paul 
still has in mind the thought of a feast, which thought, as we 
inferred from his use of the word ‘ dogs,’ he seems to have 
had in mind when writing ver. 2 (see the notes there). As 
compared with Christ, everything is as the refuse of a feast, 
even the things on which the Judaizers, who think of them- 
selves as God’s favoured children sitting at His table, rely 
for their acceptance with Him. 

From the last clause of ver. 8 to the end of ver. 11 there 
extends a statement of Paul’s motive or purpose in making 
the surrender of all things—of the gain that explains and 
compensates for the loss. As the exact interpretation of the 
passage has been the subject of much controversy, it will clear 
the ground if, before examining its clauses in detail, we state 
our view of the structure of the passage as a whole. The last 
clause of ver. 8—in order to gain Christ—is a general statement 
of the Apostle’s motive and purpose. Ver. 9 contains a state- 
ment of the gain which he expected after death. We may 
regard this gain spoken of in ver. 9 as in a sense a corollary 
of the more general gain of the last clause of ver. 8. Vers. 
1o and 11 do not, in our view, break fresh ground; they 
contain a further statement of Paul’s motive, bringing out 
more fully what is involved in the purpose already stated 


147 


THE EPISTLE, OP -PAGDO VW CCTHECE AIEEE iat 


in the last clause of ver. 8 and in ver. 9. Ver. Io answers to 
and expands the last clause of ver. 8, while ver. I1 answers 
to and re-states the corollary set forth in ver. 9. 

The last clause of ver. 8, then, is a general statement of the 
Apostle’s motive: in order to gain Christ. To gain Christ is 
to make Christ one’s own, to appropriate in its fullness and 
richness the redeeming and saving grace that abides in him. 
Moule lays stress upon the fact that it is Christ himself that 
Paul would fain possess, ‘not merely subsidiary and derived 
benefits, but the Source and Secret of all benefits.’ 

The verbs used by Paul in this context for losing and 
gaining are found also in the great saying of Jesus reported 
in Mark 8 : 36 (=Matt. 16: 26, Luke g: 25), ‘ What profit is it 
for a man to gain the whole world and to forfeit his soul ? ’ 
Kennedy suggests that the Apostle may have had the Master’s 
saying in his mind. So far from gaining the world and forfeit- 
ing his soul, Paul forfeits everything and gains his soul by gain- 
ing Christ. 

g Ver. 9, as has already been stated, speaks of an experience 
that is a natural sequence of gaining Christ and accordingly 
forms part of the Apostle’s motive and purpose. And be found 
at death in him—so runs our translation. The words at death 
are not actually represented in the Greek, but are inserted 
to make clear the true meaning of the expression ‘ to be found 
in him.’ In the Expository Times for October 1912 (p. 46) 
Moffatt cites from Epictetus an analogous use of the same 
verb. ‘It occurs,’ he writes, ‘in the fifth chapter of the 
third book of the Dissertations. ‘‘ Don’t you know,” says 
Epictetus, “‘ that disease and death are bound to overtake 
(or, surprise) us doing something ?... Now, what would you 
like to be doing when you are overtaken ? For my part, may 
I be overtaken when I am attending to nothing else than my 
own will, seeking to be imperturbable, unhindered, uncom- 
pelied, free! I want to be found practising this.”’’ These 
words help us to appreciate Paul’s meaning. When death 
overtakes him, he would fain be found in Christ. At the same 
time the rest of ver. g shows that he is thinking not merely 
of the moment when he would be surprised by death, but 

148 


ee enn 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 8-11 


also of the time when he would be standing before the judg- 
ment-seat of God. The state in which he would be found 
at death would determine his standing at the Judgment. He 
desires to be found in Christ at the Judgment as well as at 
the moment of death. The righteousness he desires to 
possess means a right standing before God’s tribunal, a stand- 
ing that would serve as a passport into the Kingdom. The 
thought of ver. g is eschatological. 

If at death and at the Judgment Paul is found in Christ, 
that involves that his standing before God will not be depen- 
dent upon his own efforts to satisfy the demands of the Law. 
So he expands the opening clause of ver. 9 by adding possessing 
no legal righteousness of my own. The standing Paul desires 
for himself when he appears before God’s tribunal is not a 
‘legal’ one, that is to say, one emanating from the Law, or 
resulting from his efforts to obey its commands. That would 
be a righteousness ‘ of his own,’ having no ground outside his 
own efforts. He had, as a matter of fact, at one time assidu- 
ously put forth such efforts in the hope of achieving righteous- 
ness. See ver. 6. But all his endeavours, sincere and whole- 
hearted as they were, had not availed to effect his reconciliation 
with God and to create the peace of mind for which he craved. 
How could they, then, supply a basis for a right standing 
before the throne of the holy God? Compare Rom. 10: 3. 

If, however, the Apostle deprecates one righteousness it is 
that he may possess another—possessing no legal righteous- 
ness of my own but the righteousness of faith in Christ. This 
righteousness which he desires to possess at death and as 
he stands before God’s judgment-seat is a righteousness that 
comes through faith in Christ. ‘ Through faith’ would have 
been a more exact rendering than of faith in the present clause, 
for the preposition used by Paul lays stress on the fact that 
faith is the medium of obtaining this righteousness. Faith 
is the attitude towards Christ which brings about man’s recon- 
ciliation with God and secures for him a right standing 
before God’s tribunal. ‘ Faith,’ says Peake, ‘is a very rich 
idea with Paul; it is that act of personal trust and self- 
surrender, the movement of man’s whole soul in confidence 


149 


THE EPISTLE OF (PAUL, TO (THEVERILIPPIANS 


towards Christ, which makes him one spirit with Him’ 
(Quintessence of Paulinism, p. 30). 

The desired righteousness is further described as the divine 
righteousness that rests on faith. These few words bring 
before us the ultimate source of righteousness as well as the 
human condition of its obtainment, which has already been 
mentioned in the foregoing clause. The true righteousness 
is divine, or ‘ from God,’ as the Greek may be literally rendered. 
There may be intended in this description of the true righteous- 
ness as ‘ from God’ a contrast both with Paul’s description of 
the deprecated righteousness as legal or ‘ from law,’ and also 
with his description of it as ‘his own.’ The condemned 
righteousness has its source in the Law and in man’s own 
attempt to obey its behests. The exalted source of the true 
righteousness is God Himself. Apart from His favour there 
can be no righteousness. He is the author of atonement, 
ever seeking man’s reconciliation to Himself. The Scriptures 
abound with declarations of His longing desire to reconcile 
man to Himself. Moreover, the means of reconciliation is 
the provision of His love. In this sense, too, the true righteous- 
ness is divine. In Rom. 5:17 Paul speaks of ‘those whe 
receive the overflowing grace and free gift of righteousness.’ 
At the same time this divine righteousness rests on faith. 
There are conditions to be satisfied on man’s part: he must 
accept and appropriate the free gift. Apart from that personal 
trust and self-surrender called faith there can be no recon- 
ciliation and no right standing before God. 

10 We have already expressed our view that in vers. 10 and Ir 
the Apostle is not breaking fresh ground, but re-stating what 
is involved in the motive or purpose stated in the last clause of 
ver. 8 andin ver. 9. This interpretation is in complete accord 
with Paul’s language (see Moulton, Prolegomena, pp. 217; 218). 
Ver. 10 expounds what is involved in the purpose stated in 
the words ‘in order to gain Christ’ (ver. 8). I would know 
him, says the Apostle, in the power of his resurrection and the 
fellowship of his sufferings. This rendering represents Paul’s 
meaning exactly. The knowledge of the power of Christ’s 
resurrection and of the fellowship of his sufferings is not dis- 

150 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 8-11 


tinct from and additional to the knowledge of Christ himself, 
as the rendering of the A.V. and the R.V. might lead the reader 
to suppose. Paul desires to know him by knowing the power 
of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, or (as 
our translation puts it) to know him in the power of his 
resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. All the 
knowledge for which he yearns is knowledge of Christ himself. 

Pau] would know him, first, in the power of his resurrection. 
It is curious to find Bengel maintaining that the word here 
rendered resurrection should be taken, not in its usual sense of 
resurrection from the dead, but as referring to the first advent 
of Christ. The reference is to the resurrection of Christ from 
the dead, and the power of his resurrection is the power with 
which as Risen Lord he is endowed. The Apostle desires to 
know Christ by experiencing the power which he wields in 
virtue of his resurrection, to know him, that is, as the redeem- 
ing, saving Lord he now has become. Thus to share in his 
Lord’s resurrection-life and resurrection-power he sometimes 
describes as being ‘raised with Christ’ (see Eph. 2:5, 6, 
Colt3 uz): 

But he would fain know Christ also in the fellowship of his 
sufferings. It is significant that the Greek does not repeat the 
definite article with the word fellowship, thus showing that to 
know Christ in the power of his resurrection and to know him 
in the fellowship of his sufferings are not two distinct and 
separable experiences, but rather two aspects of the same 
experience. This in itself is strong evidence that by knowing 
Christ in the fellowship of his sufferings Paul does not mean 
enduring outward sufferings similar to those which he endured 
in the days of his flesh. The very language intimates that the 
knowledge of Christ in the power of his resurrection and the 
knowledge of him in the fellowship of his sufferings are too 
closely related as aspects of the one experience to permit us to 
interpret the former of an inward experience and the latter of 
an outward endurance. The thought here is utterly different 
from that of Col. 1:24. Moreover, however willing the 
Apostle might have been to face and even to welcome hardship 
and persecution on the principle enunciated in Rom. 8: 28, 

151 


THE EPISTLE OF ‘PAUL TO (PHECPHILIFEIANG 


we can hardly suppose that the endurance of such sufferings 
would form part of his motive and purpose. Just as to know 
Christ in the power of his resurrection 1s an inward experience 
capable of being described as being raised with Christ, so to 
know him in the fellowship of his sufferings is to pass through 
an experience possessing some analogy with his passion. To 
rise with him into new life and power presupposes a dying to 
the old life. One is the counterpart of the other. Compare 
Rom. 6: 4-8 and Gal. 2: I9, 20. 

This interpretation of the fellowship of his sufferings is con- 
firmed by the clause that immediately follows: with my 
nature transformed to die as he died. The R.V. renders more 
literally ‘ becoming conformed unto his death.’ Our transla- 
tion is certainly justified in interpreting the clause of an inward 
transformation of nature. The verb whose participle Paul 
here uses is found nowhere else in the New Testament, but a 
cognate adjective is used in the twenty-first verse of this 
chapter as well as in Rom. 8:29. It is by no means impro- 
bable that in the present clause Paul is making use of the 
language of the Mystery Cults. If the fact of such usage 
could be established, it would reinforce the view that the 
clause speaks of an inward transmutation rather than of a 
following in the footsteps of the Master even as far as the 
endurance of physical death. In the vicinity of the present 
clause, terms are used which beyond all doubt had their place 
in the vocabulary of the Mysteries, such as ‘ knowledge’ 
(ver. 8) and ‘ mature’ (ver. 15). To say that he employs the 
language of the Mysteries is not to say that his ideas were 
derived from the Cults, or even that the terms have for him 
the same meaning that they had in the Cults ; though, on the 
other hand, there is no valid reason for confining Paul’s con- 
nexion with the Mysteries to a bare use of similar or identical 
terms. See Moulton, Religions and Religion, pp. 40, 41. In 
the Mysteries the initiates by the performance of certain rites 
shared in the experiences of the dying and rising redeemer- 
god, seeking thus to obtain a transformation of their nature 
and an assurance of a blessed immortality. It may be that it 
was the thought of this assurance of immortality vouchsafed 

152 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 8-11 


to the members of the pagan Cults that led Paul to think of 
his own hope of immortality (see ver. 11). Be that as it may, 
in the last clause of ver. 10, which we are now considering, he 
expresses the desire that in his being there should take place 
something that was analogous to the death of Christ. Per- 
haps he thought that the use of terms familiar in the Mystery 
Religions would make it easier for his readers to grasp his 
meaning, though the transformation of which he speaks is free 
from any admixture of the magical element so prominent in 
the pagan Cults. 

The concluding clause of ver. 10, then, as we interpret it, 
speaks of an inward transformation. It is true that many 
interpreters, taking the preceding clause of outward suffering, 
see in the present clause a reference to physical death. Some 
of them, including Meyer and Beet, hold that the Apostle is 
thinking definitely of martyrdom ; others, while interpreting 
the clause of ‘a conformity with the sufferings of Christ’s 
earthly life, even unto death’ (Vincent), do not find in it a 
distinct contemplation of martyrdom. The only satisfactory 
explanation of the words, however, is that adopted in our 
translation—the interpretation that discovers in them a refer- 
ence to an inward transformation of nature. With this agrees 
, Wesley’s succinct comment: ‘So as to be dead to all things 
| here below.’ 

The question has often been asked why in this verse the 
ciause that speaks of the power of Christ’s resurrection should 
precede the clause that speaks of the fellowship of his suffer- 
ings ; and many are the answers that have been given. But 
if the interpretation of the passage adopted in these notes is 
correct, the order of these two clauses has no real significance, 
for they do not speak of two distinct experiences of which one 
precedes the other in time. They speak rather of two aspects 
of the same experience, and the order in which these are 
mentioned is not a matter of any real moment. Paul mentions 
the positive aspect first, which seems a natural thing to do. 

Ver. II answers to ver. 9. It does not (as some scholars rr 
maintain) depend just on the last clause of ver. 10, but on ver. 
10 as a whole, expressing a result which Paul hopes may follow 


153 





THE EPISTLE) OF “PAUL. £0 THEVEAILICEI ANS 


out of the experience described in that verse: to see, he says, 
if I too can attain the resurrection from the dead. The word 
too, which draws attention to the correspondence between 
the resurrection which Paul desires to attain and the resurrec- 
tion of Christ himself, is not actually represented in the Greek. 
The manner in which Paul introduces this verse seems 
unmistakably to imply some sort of doubt or uncertainty on 
his part, though some scholars deny that this is so. The 
uncertainty of which he is conscious is not a doubt regarding 
survival after death. The resurrection from the dead here 
stands for all that Paul conceives the life after death to be 
for those who are truly in Christ, the glorious and triumphant 
continuance of the life lived in him here below. It may be 
that the desire to express’ the full meaning of the resurrection 
accounts for the use by Paul here of the rare double com- 
pound exanastasis, a form found nowhere else in the New 
Testament. The common word for ‘resurrection’ is the 
simple anastasis, which is used in ver. 10. No satisfactory 
explanation has ever been offered of the use of the uncommon 
form in ver. 11. Numerous suggestions have been made. 
Ellicott does not think any special significance attaches to the 
variation. But as the two forms occur in such close propinquity 
it is probable that there is some significance in the change of 
word. Can it be that exanastasts is another of the terms 
that were employed in the Mystery Cults ? 

Surprise is often expressed that Paul should be affected by 
any such doubt or uncertainty, however slight and transient, 
as this verse would seem to reveal. How, it is asked, could 
the writer of so confident a passage as Rom. 8 : 31-39 experi- 
ence any doubt ? His words in I Cor. 9: 27, however, remind 
us that he did not without intermission live in the sunshine 
ofassured certainty. There is in our passage no distrust of God 
and the power of His grace, but rather a humble distrust of 
himself. Doubts and misgivings often visit even the children 
of God. So it was with Bishop Butler, as the following 
extract from Alexander Whyte’s Appreciation (pp. 87, 88) 
will show: ‘When Butler lay on his death-bed, he called 
for his chaplain and said to him, ‘‘ Though I have endeavoured 


154 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 12-16 


to avoid sin, and to please God to the utmost of my power, 
yet, from the consciousness of perpetual infirmities, I am 
still afraid to die.’ ‘‘ My lord,” said the chaplain, ‘‘ you 
have forgotten that Jesus Christ is a Saviour.’”’ ‘‘ True,” 
said Butler, ‘‘ but how shall I know that He is a Saviour 
forme?” ‘‘ My lord, it is written, ‘ Him that cometh unto 
Me, I will in no wise cast out.’”’ ‘“‘ True,”’ said Butler, ‘‘ and 
I am surprised that though I have read that Scripture a 
thousand times over, I never felt its virtue till this moment. 
And now I die happy.” ’ 


CHRISTIAN PROGRESS AND ITS CONDITIONS (III. 12-16) 


Not that I have already attained this or am already perfect, 12 
but I press forward to appropriate it, because I have been 
appropriated myself by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I for one 13 
do not consider myself to have appropriated this; my 
one thought is, by forgetting what lies behind me and 
straining to what lies before me, to press on to the goal 14 
for the prize of God's high call in Christ Jesus. For all 15 
those of our number who are mature, this must be the point 
of view ; God will reveal that to any of you who look at 
things differently. Only, we must let our steps be guided 16 
by such truth as we have attained. 


In the last paragraph the Apostle has set before his readers 
the guiding purpose of his Christian life, the commanding 
motive that explains his renunciation of all things. Now 
with striking abruptness comes the declaration that the mark 
at which he aims has not been reached, the purpose not yet 
achieved. On the contrary, he is still engaged in a strenuous 
endeavour to reach and to achieve. His words reveal an 
obvious desire to prevent a_misinterpretation of what he has 
just said. It is equally obvious that in this repudiation of the 
idea that he has reached perfection he has in mind some 
persons, presumably among his readers, who maintained that 
they themselves had arrived at perfection. It is possible 
that along with this self-complacency there went (as Lightfoot 


155 


THE EPISTLE, OR PAUL 1O THEAPRILIPPIANS 


suggests) an Antinomian spirit, confounding liberty with 
licence, and regarding the Christian ‘as already in such a 
sense arrived at his goal as to be lifted beyond responsibility, 
duty, and progress’ (Moule). It is possible also that it is of 
these same self-complacent persons that Paul speaks in vers. 
18 and 19 of this chapter. 

In his noble sermon on ‘ Christian Progress by Oblivion of 
the Past,’ Frederick W. Robertson describes the present 
passage as ‘ one of the most encouraging in all the writings of 
St. Paul,’ inasmuch as in it the Apostle ‘ places himself on a 
level with the persons whom he addresses,’ giving them ‘ in 
himself a specimen of what frailty and weakness can achieve 
in the strength of Christ.’ On the other hand, few passages 
in Paul’s writings are more stringent and challenging, for if 
in the Apostle’s case strenuousness so unremitting was neces- 
sary, who is there who can afford to abate one whit of his utmost 
endeavour ? 

I2 Not that I have already attained this. It is clear that he is 
anticipating a possible misunderstanding of what he has said 
about himself. In the Greek no object is actually expressed 
after the verb, that is, there is no Greek word to which the 
word this in our translation corresponds. The word this 
assumes that the object of the verb is the experience described 
in the verses that precede. Is this assumption justified ? 
Does the Apostle’s thought in this opening clause of ver. 12 
definitely go back to what he has already written ? Chrysostom, 
followed by a long array of later interpreters, holds that already 
in the present clause Paul is thinking of the ‘ prize’ of which 
he speaks in ver. 14. But surely when no object is actually 
expressed it is more natural to seek for it, as our translation 
does, in what has already been said. But what precisely are 
we to include in the word this ? What exactly is it that Paul 
has not yet attained? The closing words of the preceding 
paragraph spoke of the resurrection from the dead. Does the 
resurrection form part of the content of the word this? The 
A.V., by employing the same English word ‘ attain ’ to repre- 
sent two different Greek words in ver. 11 and in the opening 
clause of ver. 12, makes it appear as if the resurrection more 

156 





CHAPTER III, VERSES 12-16 


than aught else was in the Apostle’s mind in the present 
clause. But, it may be asked, would it not be absurd to 
attribute to Paul so self-evident a statement as that he had 
not already attained the resurrection from the dead? What 
necessity could there be for calling attention to so obvious a 
fact ? Absurd, however, as it may seem at first sight, it is just 
possible that that is what Paul is doing. In 2 Tim. 2:17, 18 
we read of two men, Hymenaeus and Philetus, who ‘ have 
failed in the Truth by arguing that the resurrection has taken 
place already,’ and it has been maintained that in our present 
passage Paul is combating some such heresy. Our knowledge 
of the heresy referred to in 2 Timotheus is scanty, but it seems 
to have involved the belief that all that God can do for man 
in Christ is attainable in this life, and that there is no higher 
experience to look forward to after death. If in our passage 
Paul is combating this belief, his meaning will be that he is 
not satisfied to think that already in this life he has received 
the best that God has to bestow. So the passage is interpreted 
by the writer on our epistle in Dummelow’s One-volume 
Commentary, who finds here a challenge to certain ‘ perfec- 
tionists who imagined that Christ in their present state had 
reached the goal of his work of redemption.’ This interpreta- 
tion, however, fails to carry conviction. For one thing, we 
cannot be at all sure that the doctrine of a past resurrection 
was held as early as Paul’s time (see the article ‘ Hymenaeus’ 
in the Encyclopaedia Biblica). The passage in 2 Timotheus is 
not at all likely to have come from his pen. Moreover, if Paul 
were refuting the doctrine, we might reasonably suppose that 
he would have made his purpose more apparent. 

For these reasons a simpler and more straightforward inter- 
pretation is to be preferred. Paul means that he has not yet 
attained even so far as it 1s attainable im this lrfe all that is 
involved in the experience he has described. Ver. 11, it will 
be remembered, is grammatically dependent on ver. 10, and 
speaks of an experience which is a corollary of the experience 
described in ver. 10, so that the latter experience more natur- 
ally suggests itself as the object of the verb in the opening 
clause of ver. 12 than does the former. 


157 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE VHITIPPIANS 


Paul adds or am already perfect. In a few authorities we 
find inserted before these words a clause meaning ‘ or have 
already been justified,’ which Kennedy describes as ‘ the gloss, 
probably, of some pious copyist who imagined that the divine 
side of sanctification was left too much out of sight.’ The 
authentic clause (or am already perfect) is in the R.V. more 
literally rendered ‘ or am already made perfect.’ Paul uses a 
verb which he employs nowhere else, but which is common in 
the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is a cognate adjective that is 
rendered ‘mature’ in ver. 15. The Apostle’s disclaimer 
reminds us of Ignatius’s disavowal of perfection in his letter to 
the Ephesians (3: 1)—in which, however, a different verb is 
used—‘ I do not give you commands as if I were some one 
great, for though I am a prisoner for the Name, I am not yet 
perfect in Jesus Christ ; for now I do but begin to be a disciple, 
and I speak to you as to my fellow learners’ (Kirsopp Lake’s 
translation). 

Still, though he has not yet attained the experience for 
which he yearns, he is striving to achieve it. But, he says, I 
press forward to appropriate it. This rendering, perhaps, does 
not quite do justice to the note of contingency in Paul’s words, 
which can be more literally rendered: ‘I press forward to see 
if I am indeed to appropriate it.’ The same two verbs that 
are used here are used also in Rom. g: 30, where Paul speaks 
of Gentiles, who have never ‘aimed at’ righteousness, yet 
‘attaining ’ righteousness. It is often said that the metaphor 
of a race is already in the Apostle’s mind as he writes the 
present clause ; but that is doubtful. As Vincent points out, 
the verb rendered appropriate does not suit the metaphor, 
while the verb rendered press forward is elsewhere used by 
Paul without any such reference. The latter verb is the very 
word used in ver. 6 of this chapter for ‘ persecuting.’ It 
pictures the Apostle pursuing the object of his quest with 
dogged perseverance. Of the other verb, appropriate is an 
excellent rendering. It is found in an early papyrus of 
colonists appropriating land. It suggests the idea of grasping, 
seizing tight hold of. Here again the object of the verb is in 
the Greek left unexpressed, but it is the same as the object of 

158 


GHALEER VILL AVERSES 12-10 


I have already attained in the opening clause of the verse, and 
is succinctly stated by Wesley to be ‘ perfect holiness, pre- 
paratory to glory.’ Even though Paul has not yet attained 
it, he is determined that it will one day be his. ‘ He is not 
paralysed by the distance which yawns between him and the 
ideal’ (Jowett). 

And he gives a reason for thus pressing on to appropriate— 
because I have been appropriated myself by Christ Jesus. 
This rendering of the clause, which is substantially that of the 
margin of the R.V., is, we think, the correct rendering. It is 
significant that this is the meaning given to the clause by the 
Greek commentators. Ellicott objects to it on the ground 
that it ‘introduces a reason where a reason seems hardly 
appropriate.’ But why should the introduction of a reason at 
this point be deemed inappropriate ? 

There are two other ways of taking the clause. We may 
render: ‘whereunto, or for which purpose, I have been 
appropriated myself by Christ Jesus.’ If this be the mght 
way to take the words, the Apostle states, not that the reason 
he is pressing forward to appropriate is that he himself has 
been appropriated by Christ Jesus, but rather that the reason 
he was appropriated by Christ Jesus was that he might press 
forward to appropriate. Or again we may, as does the text 
of the R.V., connect the present clause closely with the (un- 
expressed) object of the verb appropriate in the preceding clause, 
thus: ‘I press forward to appropriate that for which I have 
been,’ etc. Neither of these renderings, however, is as satis- 
factory as the one adopted in our translation. Because at his 
conversion Christ had appropriated, had laid hold upon, him, 
Paul was pressing forward to appropriate that knowledge, 
that experience, of Christ of which he has spoken. Nothing 
less would accord with Christ’s appropriation of him. His 
language shows that he thinks of Christ Jesus as having, as it 
were, laid violent hands upon him, constraining him into his 
salvation and impressing him for his service. He did not, 
however, look upon his conversion as an end, but as a means, 
a beginning, a summons to high and unremitting endeavour. 

So eager is the Apostle to bring home to his readers the 13 


159 





LHE VEPISTLE. OL) PAULO ote PHIL EE eis 


fact that he does not regard himself as having reached perfec- 
tion that he proceeds to repeat and to expand what he has 
just said in ver. 12. Brothers, he begins, I for one do not 
consider myself to have appropriated this. This rendering 
agrees with the margin, as against the text, of the R.V. in 
omitting the word ‘ yet.’ Its inclusion would make very little 
difference to the meaning, and the authorities are fairly 
evenly balanced. Paul’s language makes it almost impossible 
to avoid the inference that he is thinking of some among 
his readers who did regard themselves as perfect. Whatever 
they may think of themselves, he does not regard himself as 
perfect. It is because he has them in mind, seemingly, and 
because his words are in effect a censure on their self-com- 
placency, that he introduces the word brothers. It is not so 
much ‘ with a view of arresting attention ’ (Lightfoot) that the 
appellation is introduced, but rather with a view of initigating 
any seeming severity in his words. The verb here well rendered 
consider is of frequent occurrence in the letters of Paul, 
parucularly in Romans and 2 Corinthians. It connotes a 
careful weighing of the point under consideration. The 
Apostle’s statement is no careless or casual remark, but 
represents his deliberate view of himself and his attain- 
ments. 

So far is he from being satisfied with his attainments that 
he adds: my one thought is, by forgetting what lies behind 
me and straining to what lies before me, to press on to the goal. 
My one thought is—the Greek literally rendered would mean 
simply ‘ one thing!’ and many views are held as to the exact 
force of this elliptical expression. Does Paul mean ‘one 
thing I do’ (as the R.V. has it), or ‘ one thing I am concerned 
about,’ or something else? In any case the general meaning 
is clear, and our translation felicitously combines the two 
ideas of concern and action. The phrase bespeaks both 
singleness of purpose and concentration of effort. The 
figure of a race is now in the Apostle’s mind, and in a race 
distractions are fatal. All Paul’s activities are subordinated 
to one supreme end. In the sermon already referred to 
Robertson says: ‘He who has not found out how directly 

160 





CHAPTER III, VERSES 12-16 


or indirectly to make everything converge towards his 
soul’s sanctification, has as yet missed the meaning of this 
life.’ 

Paul’s one thought is to press on; and he describes his man- 
ner of pressing on in the words: by forgetting what lies be- 
hind me and straining to what lies before me. First, then, 
he seeks to advance by forgetting what lies behind him. The 
word used for forgetting is, so far as the Pauline letters go, 
peculiar to this passage. It is another of the words from 
the vocabulary of the Mystery Cults employed in this chap- 
ter. What does the Apostle include in the phrase what lies 
behind me? Some maintain that he means his old Jewish 
life, in particular the prerogatives enumerated in vers. 5 and 
6 of this chapter; others hold that the reference is to his new 
life in Christ, the part of his Christian course already cov- 
ered; while others still would include in the phrase the whole 
of the Apostle’s past life both before and after his conversion. 
We have no hesitation in concluding that Paul is referring 


specifically to the part of his Christian course already tra- 
versed, and especially to the achievements and successes 
of his Christian career. A phrase identical with or similar 
to the one here rendered what lies behind is found in Jer. 
7:24 (LXX), Luke 9 : 62, John 6 : 66, and the meaning of 
the phrase in these passages is sometimes said to favour the 
view that in the present Philippian passage the reference is to 
the Apostle’s old, pre-Christian life. The reference of the 
phrase in these other passages, however, has no bearing what- 
soever on itS meaning in our passage. Paul is now clearly 
using the metaphor of a race, and it obscures and complicates 
the metaphor to see here a reference to the life he lived before 
he entered upon the Christian race. Moreover, in this whole 
passage he is combating self-satisfaction on the part of some 
Christians who imagined that they had reached perfection, 
and it is not easy to see how the forgetting on his part of 
anything other than his Christian achievements could have 
any bearing on his present purpose. It is the present parti- 
ciple of the verb ‘to forget’ that Paul employs, thus signifying 
that his forgetting is continuous and ceaseless. He forgets 
161 


THE EPISTLE. OF _ PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


as he runs. Each success is allowed to slip into oblivion 
the moment it is achieved. 

Lightfoot mentions the possibility without, however, 
endorsing the suggestion, that Paul derives his metaphor in 
the present context not from the foot-race, but rather from 
the chariot-race. But there is not much that can be said in 
favour of the suggestion. Every word would suit a foot-race, 
and it is the foot-race that usually furnishes Paul’s metaphors. 
Moreover, in this passage, where the need for effort is the 
theme, a race that demands the personal exertion of the par- 
ticipant is more likely to have suggested itself to the Apostle. 

Not only does the Apostle describe himself as forgetting 
what lies behind him: he speaks of himself also as straining 
to what lies before him. It is obvious that the figure of a race 
is in his mind. He employs a graphic participle found 
nowhere else in his writings. It is a word that speaks of 
direction and posture, picturing the racer straining and 
stretching towards the object he is so eager to reach, as if 
trying to touch it from his present position. Bengel’s com- 
ment is often quoted: ‘The eye outstrips and draws on the 
hand, the hand outstrips and draws on the foot.’ How in- 
tense must have been the Apostle’s desire to advance in 
knowledge and experience of his Lord! And how vital it is 
that we should be more intent on what we may become than 
on what we have already attained! ‘The runner,’ says Chry- 
sostom, ‘does not count the laps that are passed, but those 
that remain.’ 

14 And what does the Apostle hope to reach by all this stren- 
uous concentration? His one thought is to press on to the 
goal for the prize of God’s high call in Christ Jesus. It is 
the vision of the end of the race that ever directs and speeds 
his hastening feet. He will neither slacken nor stray so 
long as he keeps his eye on the goal. It is by contemplating 
the end that he hopes to attain the best that this present 
life can bestow. He employs again the expressive verb that 
is used in ver. 12 for ‘pressing forward’; it represents him 
as pursuing the goal, resolute in his determination to bring 
it to bay. 

162 


————— 





CHAPTER III, VERSES 12-16 


The word translated goal is not a technical term for the end of 
arace. It means a mark to look at, or aim at. Here only is 
it found in the New Testament. The word prize occurs in one 
other place only in the New Testament, namely in 1 Cor. 
g: 24, but kindred words are used in Col. 2: 18 and 3: 15. 

Some would make the goal and the prize in our passage two 
separate things; but it is better to regard them as the same 
thing viewed in two different ways. Paul is thinking of the 
final, ultimate bliss to which God summons men. He regards 
it as the mark or goal the vision of which enables him to keep 
to the right course, to ‘run without swerving ’ (as he himself 
puts it in 1 Cor.g: 26). He thinks of it also as the prize which 
he hopes to attain, the contemplation of which keeps him from 
becoming satisfied with anything he achieves in this life. 

He speaks of it as the prize of God’s high call. This does 
not mean, as some maintain, that the prize is identical with, or 
consists of, God’s high call, as though some noble summons at 
the end of the course constituted the prize. The phrase means 
rather ‘the prize to which God calls.’ It is the reward of 
obedience to His call. The call of God is a high or upward call 
because He summons men up to Himself. The author of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of it as a ‘heavenly’ call 
(Heb. 3: 1), and Paul writes to the Thessalonians of ‘ the God 
who called you to His own realm and glory’ (1 Thess. 2: 12). 
Paul heard God’s call at his conversion, and through the 
intervening years it had not ceased to summon him upward. 

The concluding words of this verse—in Christ Jesus—are by 
some expositors taken closely with to press on, but it seems 
more natural to take them with God’s high call. The call is 
in Christ Jesus. How easily this phrase comes to Paul, for all 
that concerns his salvation lives and moves and has its being 
in Christ. Through him does God’s call come, and in him it 
has its potency. 

The Apostle finds stimulus in the thought of reward. So he 
does in 2 Tim. 4: 8 (a verse which may well have come from 
his pen), where he says, ‘ Now the crown of a good life awaits 
me, with which the Lord, that just Judge, will reward me on 
the great Day.’ Compare also Heb. 11: 26, where it is said 

163 


THE EPISTLE: OF ‘PAUL TO THES PHILIPRIANS 


of Moses that ‘ he had an eye to the Reward.’ Tosome it may 
seem unworthy to find incentive in the expectation of reward ; 
but when we consider the nature of the prize sought by Paul, 
we are not conscious of any unworthiness in his attitude. 
‘There is no unworthiness,’ says Rainy, ‘in devoting life to 
win this prize; for it is a state of victorious well-being and 
well-doing ’ (Expositor’s Bible, p. 267). 

I5 The attitude which the Apostle has set forth as his own is in 
his eyes so obviously the right one that he cannot conceive of 
any other attitude approving itself to those who are competent 
to judge. No other view should be possible for those who have 
arrived at maturity in Christian experience. For all those of 
our number who are mature, he writes, this must be the point 
of view. He includes himself in the same class with his 
readers, while at the same time hinting that they have not all 
reached maturity. 

The word rendered mature is translated ‘ perfect ’’ both in 
the A.V. and in the R.V. It is cognate, as we saw, with the 
verb used in the clause of ver. 12 in which Paul says that he has 
not yet reached perfection. In ver. 12 the Apostle disclaims 
perfection, whereas here in ver. 15 he places himself among 
those who are perfect. This seeming inconsistency has occa- 
sioned much discussion. Some maintain that inasmuch as the 
two cognate words come so close together they must be used 
in the same sense, in which case the Apostle’s words in ver. 15 
must be ironical. His meaning then would be: ‘ Those of 
our number who pride themselves on their imagined perfection 
should learn to look at things as I do.’ This is the interpreta- 
tion adopted by Lightfoot, Jones, and others ; but it does not 
commend itself to us as the right interpretation. There is no 
imperative reason why the adjective in ver. 15 should bear a 
meaning strictly analogous to that of the verb in ver. 12. 
Though the two words are kindred, the possibility of misunder- 
standing is obviated by the fact that those who are spoken of 
in ver. 15 as ‘ perfect ’ are urged to seek the perfection which 
Paul disclaims for himself in ver. 12. Mature, as in our trans- 
Jation, is a far more suitable rendering in ver. 15 than ‘ per- 
fect.’ See Moffatt’s note in the Expositor for November 1916, 

164 





CHAPTER III, VERSES 12-16 


pp. 347, 348, and especially the apposite quotation from 
Epictetus. The word was used in the Mystery Cults, and 
Lightfoot (on Col. 1: 28) speaks of it as ‘ probably borrowed 
from the ancient mysteries, where it seems to have been 
applied to the fully instructed, as opposed to the novices.’ In 
early Christian literature it is used of baptized Christians as 
distinguished from catechumens. Perhaps it was tending to 
acquire some such meaning even in Paul’s day. In any case, 
we do not think the term is used ironically in the present verse. 
We fail to detect a tone of irony in the passage. Paul is 
solemnly declaring what should be the point of view of tnose 
who are sufficiently advanced to understand and appreciate 
the genius of the new faith. The same adjective is used in 
I Cor. 14: 20 (‘ In evil be mere infants, but be mature in your 
intelligence ’) and in Heb. 5: 14 (‘ Whereas solid food is for 
the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by 
exercise to distinguish good and evil ’) and often elsewhere in 
the New Testament. 

For such persons there must be no other point of view. 
They should have a point of view that is consistent with their 
maturity. The only true maturity is to strive after fuller 
maturity. Why should the laps that are past make one blind 
to the fact that there are more laps ahead ? 

The verb which Paul uses in the phrase rendered this must 
be the point of view is the verb we have already met in 1: 7, 
2:2 (twice), 2:5, and it will meet us again three or four 
times in our epistle. (See the note on1:7.) Moffatt, in the 
Expositor note to which reference has just been made, speaks 
of this verb’s ‘ striking range of application’ in our epistle, 
and adds that “here at any rate it denotes thought deter- 
mining motives, and through motives conduct’ (p. 348). 
Paul demands of those who are mature more than mere right 
thinking : he demands that the whole disposition of their life 
be similar to that which he has described as his own. 

The remainder of ver. 15 contains a word of encouragement 
to any of the readers who might be feeling ill at ease because 
of the discovery that their attitude did not tally with the 
Apostle’s own. God, says Paul, will reveal that to any of you 

165 


THE EPISTLE. ORGPACE TO THEA RAILIP EI Ars 


who look at things differently. He still has in mind the 
mature, but he now speaks in the second person because his 
words are addressed to those of their number whose view he 
differentiates from his own. 

Two slightly differing views are held regarding the exact 
meaning of these words. Frequently they are interpreted to 
mean: ‘If, while your general attitude is unimpeachable, 
your view of the application of the general principle is in any 
particular case at fault, God will reveal to you the right view 
to adopt on that particular point.’ So Rainy, for example, 
expounds the words on pp. 273 ff. of the Exposttor’s Buble. 
The other possible paraphrase would run on this wise: ‘ If 
your attitude comes short in any degree of the view I have set 
before you, God will enable you to acquire the correct point of 
view.’ This latter explanation—which is the one represented 
in our translation—is the more natural interpretation of the 
Greek. Moreover, the run of the passage as a whole suggests 
that the Apostle is more concerned about the general attitude 
of those whom he addresses than about slight aberrations in 
detail that might accompany a correct general attitude. 
Paul means that if they do not see eye to eye with him in 
what he has said, divine guidance is at their disposal to enable 
them to gain the right point of view. Nothing is said regarding 
the manner in which the divine revelation would come to them ; 
but the Apostle is fully assured that his own view is in accord 
with the mind of God. 

16 If this divine enlightenment is to come to them, a condition 
has to be satisfied ; it is of this condition that Paul speaks 
in the present verse. Only, we must let our steps be guided 
by such truth as we have attained. The Apostle now returns 
to the first person—possibly because the principle here laid 
down is of universal application. A literal rendering of the 
best-attested text of this verse would run: ‘ Only, whereunto 
we have attained, by the same let us guide our steps.’ The 
less trustworthy text which underlies the A.V. inserts the 
word ‘rule’ after ‘ the same,’ and also appends a clause ‘ let 
us mind the same thing.’ The R.V., while it does not read 
the word ‘rule’ in the Greek text which it translates, never- 

166 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 12-16 


theless interprets ‘ by the same’ to mean ‘ by the same rule,’ 
for it introduces the word ‘rule ’ in italics into its rendering. 

What is the precise significance of this imperative condition 
which the Apostle lays down ? Doeshe mean (assome interpret 
his words) that those who would obtain the divine revelation 
must continue to walk in the same path, in the same straight 
line, in which they have hitherto been walking? This can 
scarcely be his meaning, for the divine revelation of which he 
speaks is concerned with the necessity and duty of pressing 
forward and not becoming content with attainments already 
reached. He would not speak of advancing in a certain 
manner as a condition of receiving enlightenment on the 
necessity of advancing. It is much simpler to take the words 
to mean that fidelity to truth already attained is a condition 
of receiving fuller revelation. Those addressed are ‘ mature,’ 
and some measure of divine revelation must have been vouch- 
safed to them. Let them be true to that. Let them ‘ guide 
their steps’ by such truth as they have already attained. 
Each single step should be determined by fidelity to truth 
already reached. Absolute fidelity in detail is ever the 
condition of further enlightenment. ‘I still see the good in 
the inch,’ wrote young Robert Louis Stevenson to his father, 
‘and cling to it. It is not much perhaps, but it is always 
something.’ In every department of knowledge this principle 
applies. Of Romanes his biographer, Paget, says: ‘ The love 
of precision and completeness never dulled his care for the 
things that he could neither define, nor label, nor arrange ; 
in their fragmentariness he treasured them, in their reserve he 
trusted them, waiting faithfully to see what they might have 
to show him. And they did not fail him.’ 


AN EXHORTATION TO IMITATE THE APOSTLE (III. 17-19) 


Copy me, brothers, one and all of you, and notice those who 17 
live by the example you get from me. For many—as 18 
I have often told you and tell you now with tears—many 
live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Destruction is 19 
their fate, the belly is their god, they glory in their shame, 
these men of earthly mind ! 
167 





THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


In the last paragraph we found the Apostle declaring that no 
other conception of the life in Christ than his own was possible 
for those whose maturity made them competent to form a 
judgment. Now he addresses to his readers a direct injunction 
to copy him. 

17. Once more he calls them brothers, perhaps in this instance 
in order to forestall any disposition that might arise to resent 
his seeming self-assertion. Copy me, one and all of you, 
he writes. His words may be literally rendered either ‘ become 
fellow-imitators of me,’ or else ‘ become fellow-imitators with 
me’; and the injunction may be, and has been, interpreted 
in three different ways. 

(a) Some understand the Apostle to mean: ‘join with 
me in imitating Christ.’ So Bengel, for example, interprets 
the words. In the Expository Times, vol. v, p. 287, W. F. 
McMichael bases upon an examination of the occurrences of 
compound nouns analogous to the one here used for fellow- 
imitator (which occurs here only in the New Testament) the 
conclusion that this is the only meaning the present clause 
can rightly bear. The context, however, makes no reference 
to the imitation of Christ, and we may reasonably suppose 
that if this had been Paul’s meaning his words would have 
made it more evident. The name of Christ would surely have 
been introduced. 

(b) Others interpret the injunction to mean: ‘join with 
those who are already imitating me,’ ‘join the company of 
my imitators.’ As this, however, is virtually what Paul says 
in the next clause, this interpretation introduces into his 
words a gratuitous tautology. 

(c) The remaining interpretation makes the Apostle say: 
‘join with one another in imitating me,’ or, as our translation 
well puts it, Copy me, one and all of you. This doubtless is 
the meaning intended. It is the only meaning that is not open 
to some evident objection, and it is adopted by Lightfoot, 
Ellicott, and the majority of interpreters. 

It is no unusual thing for Paul to urge his readers to make 
him their pattern. ‘Then imitate me, I beg of you,’ he 
says to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 4:16; and elsewhere in 

168 


cede ia» eae cnr 


a ee eee ee 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 197-19 


the same epistle he writes, ‘ Copy me, as I copy Christ ’ (11 : 1). 
See also 1 Thess. 1:6, 2 Thess. 3: 7-9, Acts 26: 29, as well 
as 4:9 of ourepistle. How firm must have been his confidence 
in his own rectitude, how positive his certainty that he himself 
was copying Christ! His self-assertion is not enfeebled by any 
consciousness of moral poverty. It was laid to his charge by 
some of his opponents that his doctrine conduced to sin, but 
he betrays no uneasiness that his doctrine would suffer through 
any scrutiny of his own life. 

The necessity of urging upon his converts the counsel to 
copy him was in large measure forced upon the Apostle. ‘In 
the seventh decade of the first Christian century, with the 
N.T. yet unwritten, the living ideal of the Christ-life was far 
from being stereotyped in words or habits. Fluid and free, 
its appeal had to come largely through men’s experience and 
observation of one another, and the inevitable reproduction of 
character. The channel of education was chiefly the seen 
or remembered character of definite individuals, the advice 
and conduct of the best people (Heb. 13:7). Probably for 
each community one or two, dead or living, absent or present, 
represented the ideal of the Christian spirit ’ (Moffatt, in the 
Expository Times, vol. x, p. 446). Nor even yet is the task 
of providing a pattern of the Christ-life unnecessary. ‘ For 
all the popularization of the Christian ideal since the first 
century,’ says Moffatt on the same page, ‘this function has 
not yet become an anachronism. According to the sincerity 
and richness of his character, each man still stands to some 
others authoritatively for a more or less large portion of the 
ideal.’ 

To the direct command to copy him the Apostle joins a 
further injunction: and notice, he says, those who live by the 
example you get from me. ‘Notice,’ says Beet, ‘that the 
example of Paul did not supersede the need and value of the 
example of others who imitate him. For a less example under 
our immediate observation is sometimes more effective than 
a greater one at a distance ’ (p. 104). The Greek word rendered 
notice connotes close observation. In Rom. 16:17 the same 
verb is used in the sense of marking in order to shun; here 

169 


THE VEPISELE, OF FPAULVTO WHRESPHILIPET ANS 


it means to observe with the object of imitating. The word 
used here for example is found in the same ethical sense also 
infix Thess 40.37 2 Thessin3): Quiet limins4 ait pe itiise ee 
1 Pet. 5:3. Note the second person—you get—where the 
third person would have been naturally expected: by its use 
the Apostle seems to intimate that the example is available 
for those whom he is addressing as it is for those of 
whom he is speaking—those who are already turning it to 
account. 

Literally the Greek says, not ‘the example you get from 
me,’ but ‘the example you get from us.’ In our translation 
the first person plural is interpreted of the Apostle alone. In 
Greek, as in English and other languages, the first person 
plural is often used for the singular. It is so used not seldom 
in the epistles of Paul. But is it so used here? Ellicott 
would not object to the singular rendering, for he inclines to 
the view that the plural pronoun ‘ is the Apostle’s designation 
of himself viewed less in his personal than his official rela- 
tions.’ Though why he should emphasize his official relations 
when urging others to imitate him is not evident. It may be 
said in favour of the singular rendering that a reference to 
others along with himself comes somewhat awkwardly in the 
absence of the slightest hint on the Apostle’s part as to the 
identity of those whom he thus associates with himself. On 
the other hand, the use by Paul of both the singular and the 
plural pronouns in reference to himself in the same sentence 
would have been strange. It is sometimes said that he felt 
the me in the first part of the sentence to be too egotistical, 
and so finished the sentence with the plural pronoun! But it 
may be questioned whether the Apostle would allow himself 
to be disturbed by a misgiving that was capable of being dis- 
pelled by a mere change of pronoun. On the whole, the view 
that the plural pronoun includes others besides the Apostle is 
to be preferred. But who these others are we can only guess. 
If the present paragraph belongs to the epistle to the Philip- 
pians, then the ‘ us ’ would refer to Paul and those of his fellow- 
workers who were known to the Philippians, particularly those 
who were now with him in Ephesus, such as Timotheus and 

170 





> OY SEI A OO TE FB OA a LO GBM, 


Sa 


CHAPTER III, VERSES 19-19 


Epaphroditus. In that case ‘ those who live by the example 
you get from us ’ would be certain members of the Philippian 
Church whom the rest could copy to their profit. On the other 
hand, if, as we hold, this paragraph originally formed no part 
of the Philippian epistle, then it is a futile task to inquire 
minutely regarding the persons whom Paul here associates with 
himself. 

Whatever may have been the exact circumstances under 
which this verse was written, it certainly suggests the precept 
that ‘ everything in a minister should be exemplary ’ (Trapp). 
“Take heed to yourselves,’ said Baxter to the ministers of 
Worcester, “ lest you may unsay that with your lives which you 
say with your tongues, and be the greatest hinderers of the 
success of your own labours. It much hindereth our work 
when other men are, all the week long, contradicting to poor 
people in private that which we have been speaking to them 
from the Word of God in public; because we cannot be at 
hand to manifest their folly ; but it will much more hinder if 
we contradict ourselves, and if your actions give your tongue 
the lie. . . . One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless con- 
tention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a 
sermon ’ (quoted by Moffatt in the Expositor for November 


1916, p. 349). 


In this verse and the next Paul gives his reason for address- 18 


ing to his readers the injunctions of ver. 17. The translators 
of the A.V., conscious no doubt that ver. 20, which they 
rightly introduce with ‘for,’ and not with ‘but,’ does not 
come naturally after ver. I9, make a parenthesis of vers. 18 
and 19, enclosing them within brackets. But surely the 
connexion between ver. 17 and ver. 18 is too close to permit 
even the slight disjunction which is involved in the punctua- 
tion of the A.V. : 

For many—as I have often told you and tell you now with 
tears—many live as enemies of the cross of Christ: that is why 
the Apostle would have his readers copy him. He shudders 
at the thought of their being influenced to their hurt by men 
who live as enemies of the cross of Christ ! 

Who are these persons the mention of whom now brings 

17I 


THE ‘EPISTLE, ORSPACL, TORTHEPEELOLE Pin ims 


tears to the Apostle’s eyes ? By some they have been identified 
with the Judaizers of the second verse of this chapter. That 
was the view of Hort. By others they are identified with the 
persons whom we can discern behind the words of the Apostle 
in ver. 13—those who claimed to have reached perfection. 
There is, however, no compelling reason for identifying them 
with either of these two classes. Neither Judaizers nor ‘ per- 
fectionists ’ as such would merit the reproachful strictures of 
vers. 18 and1g. It is probable that the Apostle is now speak- 
ing of another class altogether. 

One thing seems certain: these persons were within the 
pale of the Christian Church. The grounds on which this con- 
clusion is based are well stated by Kennedy. For one thing, 
the word live in ver. 18 renders the same Greek word as does 
the word ‘ live ’ in ver. 17, and seeing that in ver. 17 1t means 
to live as Christians, it presumably bears the same meaning in 
ver. 18. Again, the fact that the Apostle is moved to tears 
as he speaks of them suggests that they bear the name of 
Christ, for it is scarcely probable that his emotions would have 
been thus deeply stirred had they been Jews or pagans. 
Furthermore, the phrase enemies of the cross of Christ would 
have been ‘a mere platitude’ (as Kennedy puts it) if used of 
persons outside the Christian pale. It was a perverted type of 
Christian life that these men exhibited: that is why the 
Apostle is so urgent that his readers should follow the example 
set by his own life. They were Antinomian Christians—men 
who distorted and misapplied Paul’s own doctrine of God’s 
free grace. It was the fact that they perverted and travestied 
his doctrine that above all else moved him to tears as he spoke 
of them. They interpreted Christian liberty as licence to 
gratify the lusts of the flesh. They presumed that inasmuch 
as they were ‘in Christ,’ they were free from the control of the 
moral law. They were free! They were at liberty to indulge 
any passion! Their freedom was converted into ‘ an opening 
for the flesh’ (Gal. 5:13). If we knew the circumstances 
under which vers. 1b-19 of this chapter were written, we should 
perhaps be able to identify these Antinomians with greater 
precision. On general grounds they are more likely to have 

172 





CHAPTER III, VERSES 17-19 


been Gentile than Jewish Christians. What exactly led Paul 
to utter this warning against their influence just at this point 
we can only surmise. Was he led to do so by the thought that 
the ‘ perfectionists ’ of whom he was thinking when he wrote 
the last paragraph were in peculiar danger of drifting into 
Antinomianism ? They were perfect! Surely nothing could 
harm them! They could indulge any appetite with impunity ! 
Christians who cease to strive after a higher perfection are apt 
to slip back into places of peril. 

It is difficult to believe—as has often been remarked by 
writers on our epistle—that Antinomian Christians of the type 
here spoken of formed part of the Philippian Church. How, 
for example, could the Apostle have written as he does in 1: 3 ff. 
to a community that included such men in its membership ? 
And so recourse is sometimes had to the conjecture that Paul 
is uttering a warning against an evil that was threatening the 
Church from without. Indeed the impossibility of thinking 
that the Philippian Church harboured such persons has led 
some expositors to maintain that Paul must have had in mind 
the surrounding heathen population. The reasons, however, 
which have already been given for regarding those of whom he 
speaks as members of the Christian Church seem to us to be 
conclusive. The impression made upon us by the Apostle’s 
words is that the Antinomians of whom he speaks are right 
among his readers. The words which form the parenthesis in 
our translation—as I have often told you and tell you now with 
tears—do not in the original Greek (as conceivably they might 
do in the English rendering) imply that the readers had no 
first-hand acquaintance with them. They show that the peril 
was of long standing; and the readers’ need of reiterated 
warning over a long period is best explained on the supposition 
that the persons who constituted the peril were on the spot. 
The analogy of ver. 17 also points in the same direction. 
Those who live by the example they get from Paul and his 
associates are, we may suppose, members of the community 
addressed by the Apostle; and presumably therefore the 
persons whose example they are to shun are amongst them. 
It is obvious that all this gives strong support to the hypo- 


173 


THE EPISTLE: OF <PACL TO LAEWHIEIP Ere 


thesis that the present paragraph did not originally form part 
of the Epistle to the Philippians. 

The warning often given in the past Paul now repeats— 
and he does so with tears. The words with tears represent a 
participle in the Greek, and the very choice of verb would 
seem to point to the intensity of his grief, for the verb is com- 
monly used of loud expression of pain or sorrow. Paul was a 
man of strong and deep emotions. ‘I wrote you,’ he once 
said to the Corinthians, ‘in sore distress and misery of heart, 
with many a tear’ (2 Cor. 2: 4). He tells the Ephesian elders 
at Miletus how he had served the Lord among them ‘ with 
many a tear,’ and bids them remember ‘ how for three whole 
years ’ he had ‘ never ceased night and day to watch over each 
one’ of them ‘ with tears’ (Acts 20: 19 and 31). Plummer 
quotes the words in which Newman describes the emotion 
under which he wrote his Apologia: ‘I have been constantly 
in tears, and constantly crying out in distress.’ 

These Antinomian Christians live as enemies of the cross 
of Christ. The Greek has the definite article with the word 
enemies, and it is possible that the Apostle means that they 
are the enemies par excellence of the cross of Christ. Whether 
he means that or not, he certainly means more than that 
their conception of the cross is opposed to right doctrine. 
The description of them in ver. Ig makes it clear that the 
present clause means that their whole life is antagonistic to 
the cross. Their spirit is the reverse of the spirit of the cross. 
It tends to subvert the cross. Paul thinks of their lives as 
contradicting and obstructing the whole design of the death of 
Christ, neutralizing the influence of the cross as a renovating 
principle. The phrase enemies of the cross of Christ points 
markedly to the central place occupied by the cross in the 
thought of Paul. 

Ig Ver. 19 consists of a frightful description of these persons 
whose manner of life called forth the counsel of this paragraph. 
The first of its four clauses is a statement of their destiny, 
while the remaining three specify some of their characteristics. 
Bengel observes that the destiny is announced first in order 
that the succeeding clauses may be read with the greater horror. 


174 





CHAPTER III, VERSES 17-19 


Destruction is their fate—thus is their destiny set forth. 
The word here rendered destruction is used also in 1: 28, 
where it is rendered ‘ruin.’ See the note there. The A.V. 
has ‘ perdition’ in 1:28 and ‘destruction’ in the present 
verse ; the R.V. has ‘ perdition ’ in both places. The noun is 
Paul’s usual word to express the antithesis of salvation. And 
those whose destiny he describes by its means are within the 
Church of Christ! The word translated fate is represented 
by ‘end’ both in the A.V. and in the R.V. Fate is an excel- 
lent rendering, for the word here connotes the idea of inevit- 
ability ;1t stands for the unescapable end or outcome of the 
life these persons are living. Paul has the same word in 
Rom. 6: 21 in the saying ‘ the end of all that is death.’ It is 
used also in 2 Cor. 11: 15, Heb. 6: 8, 1 Pet. 4:17. What but 
destruction can be the fate of the enemies of the cross of 
Christ—the cross which is God’s means of salvation ? 

Now come the three clauses which describe their charac- 
teristics. The first declares that the belly is their god. What- 
ever their profession or pretensions might be, the belly is the 
real object of their worship, the supreme interest of their life. 
This metaphorical use of belly covers seemingly more than 
mere gluttony. Kennedy remarks that it ‘is probably used 
as a general term to include all that belongs most essentially 
to the bodily, fleshly life of man.’ It stands for the satisfac- 
tion of the carnal nature. Venter in Latin is similarly used 
for the fleshly appetites in general. These Antinomians were 
“men of coarse and unblushing indulgence ’ (Rainy, p. 287). 

The indictment proceeds in the words they glory in their 
shame. What they deem to be their glory is, when rightly 
viewed, a ground of shame. ‘ What they valued themselves 
upon, what they inwardly, at least, rejoiced in, and applauded 
themselves for, what they would, perhaps, have most cheer- 
fully dwelt upon in congenial company, were things of which 
they had every reason to be ashamed ’ (Rainy, p. 288). What 
precisely is it that Paul means by their shame? The reference 
surely is not, as some have thought, to their circumcision. 
Nor is it the actual indulgence in which they glory ; nor yet, 
as Rainy thinks, the resources they have gathered for the 


175 


iil. 
1a, 


21 


lv. 


THE EPISILE (OR SPAUL TOs Dias PHi ei Peiains 


worship of their god the belly. Paul is probably thinking of 
their perverted liberty. They would boast of their Christian 
liberty ; they would glory in their freedom ; but in their case 
it was a liberty debased and prostituted. Did they only 
know it, their glory was a reason for shame and humiliation. 

The description closes with the words these men of earthly 
mind! The R.V., somewhat more literally, has ‘who mind 
earthly things.’ The verb whose participle is employed in 
the phrase is the verb, found twice in ver. 15 and often else- 
where in our epistle, of which more than once we have had 
occasion to state that it denotes much more than mere intel- 
lectual perception. The present phrase denotes that the 
whole trend and inclination of the life of these persons is 
towards the things of earth. The same verb is used in the 
injunction of Col. 3:2: ‘mind what is above, not what is on 
earth.’ These men of earthly mind is a terrible indictment of 
men who profess to comprehend and live by the faith of 
Christ. 


CHAPTERS III AND IV 
Joy AND STEADFASTNESS IN THE LoRD (III. Ia, 20, 21; Iv. I) 


20 Well then, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. But [For] we 
are a colony of heaven, and we wait for the Saviour who 
comes from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will 
transform the body that belongs to our low estate till it 
resembles the body of his Glory, by the same power that 
enables him to make everything subject to himself. 
So then, my brothers, for whom I cherish love and longing, 
my joy and crown, this is how you must stand firm in the 
Lord, O my beloved. 


The expression with which the Apostle introduces this 
paragraph appears in our translation as well then. Both the 
A.V. and the R.V. render it by ‘finally.’ In 4: 8, where the 
Same expression recurs, our translation agrees with the A.V. 
and the R.V. in the rendering ‘ finaliy.’ The phrase consists 
of the Greek adjective meaning ‘ remaining’ preceded by the 

176 














GHATISALITVWVE RSUt1ast 20,4 20s CHA PiOTV VE RvGY 


definite article, and may be rendered literally ‘as for what 
remains. The expression itself does not of necessity denote 
that when a writer employs it he is about to bring his writing 
to a close. It is, however, the kind of phrase that is more 
likely to be required towards the end of a writing, and is 
often correctly rendered by means of some such word as 
‘finally.’ It is also a natural phrase to use in making a 
transition to a fresh subject, and Paul not seldom uses it when 
he passes to the more practical section of a letter. In its 
present occurrence the expression would seem to mark a 
transition. From this point on our epistle consists of a number 
of paragraphs, all save one quite brief, in which the Apostle 
appears to be replying to various specific points raised in a 
letter which he had received from Philippi. The present 
paragraph is the first of these. 

So far our exposition of chap. 3 has proceeded on the sup- 
position that vers. 1b-19 are a Pauline fragment which did 
not originally form part of the Epistle to the Philippians. We 
now return to the actual letter sent to Philippi, combining, 
to form the present paragraph, a clause that in the traditional 
text precedes the interpolation with three verses that follow it. 

There does not seem to be much doubt that ver. 20 originally 
opened with the word ‘ for,’ as in the A.V. and the R.V., and 
not with but, as in our translation. It is true that a consider- 
able number of ancient authorities can be mustered in support 
of the reading but. Among all these, however, there is only 
one Greek manuscript—a cursive of the sixth century. All 
the rest are either versions or citations in early writers. This 
evidence for the reading but shows that ‘for’ was felt to be 
awkward ; but it stops far short of proving that but was the 
original reading. ‘For,’ seemingly, was changed to but to 
enable ver. 20 to attach itself more easily to the interpolation. 

Even with the true reading ‘for,’ it is not an impossible 
task to discover more or less satisfactory ways of attaching 
ver. 20 to the closing part of the interpolation. We may, for 
example, regard the verse as furnishing a reason for the 
injunction to copy the Apostle (vers. 17-19). Or we may 
connect ver. 20 more directly with the description of the 


177 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


enemies of the cross of Christ in vers. 18, 19 (and in particular 
with the closing words of the description ‘ these men of earthly 
mind ’) and regard it, with Vincent, as ‘ confirming the state- 
ment concerning the one party by showing the opposite course 
or character of the other.’ Or, again, we may think that 
between ver. Ig and ver. 20 there passed through the Apostle’s 
mind a thought that did not find actual expression in his 
words. That is Lightfoot’s way of establishing the connexion, 
for he paraphrases thus: ‘Their souls are mundane and 
grovelling. They have no fellowship with us; for we are 
citizens of a heavenly commonwealth.’ 

Other points of possible contact or contrast between ver. 19 
and ver. 20 have been noted by expositors, as for example 
by Bengel, who finds in Saviour (ver. 20) a designed contrast 
to ‘ destruction ’ (ver. 19), and in Lord (ver. 20) a contrast to 
‘the belly is their god’ (ver. Ig). But when all has been said 
that can be said, it must be conceded that ver. 20 in its true 
and original form does not follow ver. 19 with ease and natural- 
ness. On the other hand, it will readily be admitted that it 
follows in a most natural manner after the injunction of 
3: 1a: My brothers, rejoice in the Lord ; for we are a colony 
of heaven. 

Confirmation of the hypothesis that ver. 20 originally came 
directly after Ia may perhaps be found in the fact that the text 
as thus rearranged reminds us of the words of Jesus to the 
Seventy recorded in Luke 10: 20, which may well have been 
in the Apostle’s mind. ‘ Rejoice,’ says Jesus to the Seventy, 
“because your names are enrolled in heaven.’ Rejoice in the 
Lord, says the Apostle to the Philippians, for we are a colony 
of heaven. The words of Jesus allude to the ‘ book of life’ 
which Paul actually mentions in 4:3; and it is significant 
that the mention of it leads him immediately (in 4 : 4) to repeat 
the injunction to rejoice. The thought in Phil. 3: 20 is clearly 
the same as that in Luke 10:20. In his comment on the 
Lucan text Trapp remarks that to have their names written 
in heaven was to be ‘ enrolied burgesses of the New Jerusalem.’ 
See the paper on ‘ The Philippian Interpolation : Where does 
it End?’ in the Expositor for January 1920. 

178 


CHARPALITMVERS 7 14)020,,21-4CHAPAUVAV ERS i 


At this point in our epistle, as we have seen, the Apostle 
makes a transition. He now appears to be taking up one by 
one certain things which the Philippians had mentioned in 
| a letter to him. It is easy by reading between the lines of 
the present paragraph (3: 1a, 20, 21; 4:1) to discern what 
was taking place at Philippi, and to surmise what the Philip- 
pians had said in their letter. The Christian community was | 
being persecuted by those who looked upon the new faith as \/ 
something incompatible with Roman citizenship and as 
involving disloyalty to the Emperor. Such charges were 
frequently levelled against the Christians. The words of our 
paragraph suggest that the persecuted believers were tempted 

to lose heart. All this they had recorded in their letter. So 
the Apostle pleads with them to rejoice in the Lord and to 
stand firm in him. How natural against a background of per- 
secution are the many terms of endearment which he employs 

in his effort to cheer them, as well as his mention of their 
citizenship, more august than that of Rome, and of their 
Saviour, more potent than the Emperor. Only against such a 
background does the present paragraph become intelligible. 
The same background lies behind 1 : 27-30. 

Well then, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. Note how the 1a 
expressions my brothers and in the Lord are taken up again in 
4:1I—another hint that 3: 1a and 4:1 were not originally 
as far apart as they are in the traditional text. 

The word rendered rejoice is translated ‘ farewell’ in the 
margin of the R.V. It can, and often does, bear that mean- 
ing. In 2 Cor. 13:11, for example, it is suitably rendered 
‘goodbye’ in our translation. But that meaning is not by 
any means as suitable as rejoice in the present verse. The 
margin of the R.V. has ‘ farewell’ for the same word again in 
4:4. It isin the Lord that Paul bids the Philippians rejoice. 
How easily this phrase, or some equivalent, comes to him! 
Only ‘in Christ’ could the harassed Christians at Philippi 
triumphantly rejoice in the face of persecution. 

For we are a colony of heaven—that is the ground on 20 
which the Apostle bases the injunction of ver. 1a. The 
sudden change to the first person is quite in Paul’s manner. 


179 














FHE, EPISTLE.OMPAULCIOST AERP HI LIP EAs 


Frequently, when addressing his readers in the second person, 
he suddenly turns to the first person as if to avoid the exclu- 
sion of himself from some privilege or responsibility. Compare 
1Cor.5:7. Inthe present clause the Apostle employs a noun 
(politeuma) of which this is the solitary New Testament occur- 
rence. Literally rendered, what he says would run: ‘ for our 
politeuma is in heaven.’ A kindred verb is used in the phrase 
‘do lead a life’ in 1 : 27, which helps to confirm the view that 
the same background lies behind 1 : 27-30 and the present 
passage. Now, what meaning are we to give to the word 
politeuma? The A.V. has ‘ for our conversation is in heaven.’ 
‘Conversation’ here of course bears its archaic meaning of 
“manner or intercourse of life,’ the sense intended by the 
A.V. being, seemingly, ‘ our manner of life belongs to heaven, 
is in harmony with heaven.’ 

The most natural and probable meaning of politeuma here, 
however, is either ‘citizenship’ or ‘state.’ The R.V. has 
‘citizenship ’ in its text, and ‘ commonwealth’ in its margin. 
Either ‘ citizenship’ or ‘state’ gives excellent sense. Most 
modern expositors seem to favour ‘state.’ But would Paul 
have said that the Christian’s state was 7m heaven? Would 
he not rather have said that heaven was his state or city ? 
For this reason we take his meaning to be ‘ for our citizen- 
ship is in heaven,’ that is, we are enrolled as burgesses in 
heaven. Seeing that Paul and those whom he is addressing 
are citizens of heaven while not actually in heaven, it follows 
that they are colonists of heaven. This is how the excellent 
rendering of our translation is arrived at. Souter, in his 
Pocket Lexicon, says that the word politeuma itself sometimes 
means a colony, adding that this meaning gives excellent 
sense in the present passage. We do not know what evidence 
there is for this meaning, but even if the word could mean a 
colony that would not here be a suitable meaning, for it would 
make the Apostle say ‘ our colony is in heaven,’ which surely 
is not what he means. 

The same conception of the august citizenship of the Chris- 
tian believer is found in Eph. 2:19 and in Heb. 11: 13 ff. 
With such passages as these should be compared the descrip- 

180 











a 


CHAP SIIERVERS. © 1a;720 24 CHA PoelVeAVil Rist 


tion of the Christians in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to 
Diognetus, where occurs the statement that ‘ they pass their 
time upon the earth, but they have their citizenship in 
heaven.’ 

Philippi was a Roman colony—a miniature Rome in distant 
Macedonia. Many ofits inhabitants would be Roman citizens, 
and these would constitute the aristocracy of the city. How 
many Roman citizens were members of the Christian com- 
munity we have no means of ascertaining. The Roman 
citizens at Philippi were intensely proud of their citizenship, 
as we may see from Acts 16: 20, 21. If these proud Romans 
were charging the Christians with the crime of belonging to a 
fellowship that involved disloyalty to Rome and the Emperor, 
we can imagine how Paul’s noble words would Seen: and 
hearten his readers. It is not the common word /“ is’ from 
the ordinary verb ‘to be’ that the Apostle employs in the 


present sentence, but a verb which lays stress on the actual , 


existence of the citizenship ; it is as if he were assuring them 
that their heavenly citizenship 1 is no delusion, no mere dream 
of the fancy. There is emphasis, too, on the word “our’— 
‘our citizenship is in heaven ’—which is intelligible only if 
Paul had some other citizenship in his mind as he wrote. 
This again corroborates our reading of the situation that 
occasioned the writing of this paragraph. 

To the statement that he and his fellow-Christians are a 
colony of heaven the Apostle adds that they are possessed of a 


‘ mighty expectation: and we wait for the Saviour who comes 


from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Greek (as in several 
other languages) the word for heaven is often plural. It is so 
in the opening clause of this verse—for we are a colony of 
heaven. The clause with which we are now dealing—the one 
that speaks of waiting for the Saviour—is in the Greek a 
relative clause in which the word heaven does not actually 
occur. As the relative pronoun is in the singular, some 
scholars (among whom are Bengel, Lipsius, and Kennedy) 
have contended that heaven cannot be its antecedent. The 
antecedent, they say, must be the poltteuma, which must 
therefore here be used in a local sense, seeing that the Saviour 
181 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


is tocome from it. It is quite permissible, however, to regard 
the relative phrase as of the nature of an adverb (meaning 
‘whence ’) and to take heaven as the antecedent. It is from 
heaven, as our translation rightly has it, that the Saviour is 
expected. 

The Greek literally says ‘ a Saviour,’ not ‘ the Saviour,’ the 
absence of the definite article serving to draw attention to the 
character or capacity in which the Lord Jesus Christ was 
looked for. There is, too, some emphasis on the word 
‘Saviour,’ which is not easy to explain. Some detect in the 

emphasis an implied contrast between his coming as Judge 
“and his coming as Saviour. Can it be that the words of Jesus 
to the Seventy are still in Paul’s mind? Jesus tells them 
that he had watched Satan fall from heaven. From that same 
heaven Paul waits for a Saviour-! 

Our translation is at one with the R.V. in rendering the verb 
in this clause by wait for. The Greek verb denotes a waiting 
that is eager, intense. The A.V. renders by ‘ look for,’ which 
perhaps has in it more of the idea of eager longing than has 
wait for. The verb implies a concentration on one object to 
the disregard of all else. It is used in Rom. 8:19, 23, 25, 
Cor. 1:7, Gal’5*:.5) Heb. 9 728, 1-Pet. 3: 20;/and ‘séeniesca 
have been a favourite word to use of the expectation of the 
Parousia. That expectation was a cardinal element in the 
life of the early Church, and its moral power is well illustrated 
by our present passage. 

Jesus is expected as Saviour. Apart from the Pastorals, 
the only other occurrence of the word ‘ Saviour ’ in the Pauline 
epistles is in Eph. 5:23. In the New Testament as a whole 
the word occurs only twenty-four times, ten of these being in 
the Pastorals, and not one of the ten in those parts which 
appear to be genuine Pauline notes. In eight of the twenty- 
four occurrences the word refers to God. The Old Testament 
often speaks of God as a saving God, using for the most part 
a verbal participle to express the thought. In this the LXX 
generally follows the example of the Hebrew, though some- 
times it employs the Greek noun, as for example in Isa. 45 : 21. 
The source of the Christian use of the term for God and Christ 

182 


CHAP YV ERS. 14,120,420 CHAP. IVss VER WA 


was probably the Old Testament usage. It is true that the 
Old Testament does not once speak of the Messiah as Saviour, 
but it was inevitable that the term should be applied by the 
Christians to the Christ who had saved them from evil spirits, 
from the oppression of fatalism, from the bondage of the Law, 
and from sin. The term was employed in the Cults for the 
saviour-god. It was also applied to Zeus, Apollo, and others 
of the gods; and there exists an abundance of inscriptional 
evidence to show that it was applied to the Roman Emperors 
(see Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, pp. 368, 360). 
The Christians at Philippi would be charged by their opponents 
| with the criminal folly of putting themselves outside the pale 
of the Saviour-Emperor’s care and protection. Paul reminds 
them that they also have their Saviour, that their state has 
its Emperor. Notice the full name and title—the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

Ver. 21 states what the Saviour will do at his coming: 21 
who will transform the body that belongs to our low estate 
till it resembles the body of his Glory, by the same power that 
enables him to make everything subject to himself. Why 
does Paul specifically mention the transformation of the body 
as the work to be accomplished by the Saviour at his Parousia ? 
Some think he introduces this thought as a contrast to the 
thought of the desecration of the body by the Antinomians 
spoken of.in ver. 19; but there is nothing in ver. 21 that 
naturally suggests the persons referred to in vers. 18, Ig. 
If vers. 1b-19 are an interpolation, then ver. 21 is brought 
into close proximity to the latter part of chap. 2, and it is 
possible that it was the thought of the all but mortal illness 
of Epaphroditus that led Paul to think of the body that belongs 
to our low estate. 

But it may not be necessary to find in the context a reason 
for the reference to the transformation of the body. At the 
Parousia that is just what would remain to complete their 
salvation. If any explanation is required of the mention of 
the body, perhaps it may be found in the fact that the Philip- 
pian Christians were being subjected to bodily suffering and 
torture. We remember that lashes and imprisonment were 

183 


eS ee a 








THE EPISTLE (OF. PACL TORT HE SPHILIP PIAS 


the lot of Paul himself at Philippi, and the suggestion that the 
Philippians were now undergoing suffering in some ways similar 
is lifted out of the region of surmise by the words of I: 30. 
We remember also how his Roman citizenship had stood the 
Apostle in good stead at Philippi: would not the thought 
of the nobler citizenship which they shared with him put new 
spirit into the suffering Christians at Philippi ? 

The body in its present state is described by the Apostle as 
the body that belongs to our low estate. The R.V. has ‘the 
body of our humiliation,’ while the A.V. renders ‘ our vile 
body.’ There is not the least suggestion in the Greek of Stoic 
contempt for the body as the unhappy rendering of the A.V. 
might lead one to suppose. When Archbishop Whately in his 
Jast illness heard his chaplain read the words of Paul in the 
rendering of the A.V., he exclaimed, ‘ Read his own words! ’ 
The body that belongs to our low estate is just what the Apostle 
means. To-him_our present life is a state of humiliation as 
compared with the state of glory that awaits us. The body 
we now have is in keeping with our present low estate. It is 
subject to weakness, the home. of fleshly lusts, the ready 
instrument of sin. Te 

There are several points of contact between the present 
paragraph and vers. 5-11 of chap. 2. A verb cognate with the 
noun rendered low estate is used of Christ in 2 : 8—‘ he humbly 
stooped.’ Glory in ver. 21 answers to the same word in 
2:11. The verb rendered transform embodies the noun trans- 
lated ‘form’ in 2:8, while the adjective that underlies the 
words till it resembles embodies the noun rendered ‘ nature’ 
in 2:6. These points of contact go far towards justifying the 
inference that the passage in chap. 2 was in Paul’s mind as 
he wrote the passage in chap. 3; and they make it difficult to 
believe that the present paragraph is not an original part of the 
Epistle to the Philippians. They tell strongly against Kirsopp 
Lake’s theory that the interpolation extends as far as 4: 3. 

The transformed body will resemble the body of his Glory. 
This is also the rendering of the R.V., and is far superior to 
that of the A.V.—‘ his glorious body.’ The phrase means 
‘the body which he now has in his state of exaltation ’—*‘ the 

184 











GHA PMT WVERS 210720025 CHAP STV; “VERRY 


form,’ as Vincent puts it, ‘in which his perfect spiritual being 
is manifest.” That is what the believer’s body will resemble ! 
Paul’s expectation climbs to dizzy heights. And if the 
believer’s body is to be like his Lord’s, it follows that his spirit 
also must be like his, for spirits that were not alike would not 
be thought of as inhabiting bodies of the same nature. ‘ We 
are children of God now, beloved ; what we are to be is not 
apparent yet, but we do know that when he appears, we are to 
be like him—for we are to see him as he is’ (1 John 3: 2). 

Paul does not picture the life to come apart from the body ; 
he has not cast off his Jewish mode of thought in order to 
replace it by the Greek doctrine of the immortality of the soul. 
‘Paul shrank, with Pharisaic dislike, from any Hellenic con- 
ception of the immortality of the soul apart from a body. His 
realism made him shudder at any idea of disembodiment. 
It is not possible to determine his exact view of the risen body, 
which he regarded as essential to the risen life; sometimes 
he suggests that the present body will be transformed, some- 
times that an entirely fresh body will be ours ; but he certainly 
believed in the creation of a new organism by the Spirit which 
should be adequate to the needs of the new spirit ’ (Moffatt, 
Paul and Paulinism, pp. 37, 38). It may be that the idea 
of a transformed body and that of a body entirely fresh 
were not to him mutually exclusive. ‘ Niagara,’ says Beet, 
‘remains the same while every drop of water is ever 
changing.’ 

The remainder of the verse tells that the Saviour will bring 
to pass this great transformation by the same power that 
enables him to make everything subject to himself. Literally 
the words might be rendered ‘ in accordance with the power,’ 
etc. The transforming of the believer’s body will be in keeping 
with his mighty power. There is a suggestion in the clause 
that great power will be needed to effect the transformation ; 
but the task will not be beyond the Saviour’s power. Calvin 
remarks that the object of the clause is to remove every possible 
doubt. The Philippian Christians need have no fear lest his 
power should prove inadequate for the task. Was Paul led 
to speak of the power of the Lord by his recollection of the 

185 


iv. 


THE SEPISTLE SOF) PAU ISI OU LHES PHILT EE Eaves 


words of Jesus recorded in connexion with the return of the 
Seventy ? See Luke 10: 19 and 22. 

The word used by Paul for power is used only of superhuman 
power in the New Testament. In 2 Thess. 2: 9 and 11 it refers 
to diabolical power, and in all its other occurrences (Eph. I : 19, 
399, 471655 Colt 720)'2 v1 2;eand* the present passare; ea 
divine power. 

The Apostle was certain that ultimately Christ would subdue 

all things to himself. ‘ For he must reign,’ he tells the Corin- 
thians, ‘ until all his foes are put under his feet. (Death is the 
last foe to be put down.) For God has put everything under 
his feet’ (1 Cor. 15: 25-27a). Of this universal victory the 
changing of the believer’s body will form a part; it is part 
of the subjection of all things to him. The object of the 
transformation is to make us more fit for his service. 
1 Now comes the direct injunction to stand firm in spite of 
persecution and depression. Our translation is right in not 
beginning a fresh paragraph with this verse. So then, my 
brothers, for whom I cherish love and longing, my joy and 
crown, this is how you must stand firm in the Lord, O my 
beloved. So then, that is, seeing that you have such abundant 
reason for rejoicing in the Lord. The appellation my brothers 
is repeated from 3: 1a. Toit the Apostle now adds for whom 
I cherish love and longing. In the Greek this clause consists 
of two adjectives, which are translated ‘ beloved ’ and ‘ longed 
for’ both in the A.V. and in the R.V. Not only does the 
Apostle love them: he also longs to have them near him. 
This is the only occurrence of the second of the two adjectives 
in the New Testament. The multiplication of terms of 
endearment in this verse is a sign of the Apostle’s deep 
sympathy with his suffering readers. 

He tells them that they are his joy and crown. Beet 
remarks that this joy is ‘ understood only by those who have 
children in the faith.’ Cf. 1 Thess. 3:9. The word used by 
Paul for crown is sometimes employed, it is true, for a kingly 
crown, the sign of sovereignty, but it more commonly repre- 
sents the festive garland, or the garland bestowed as a reward 
of victory in the games. The Philippians are the Apostle’s 

186 





CHAPIN VERS @1a;s207 21,4 CHAP RIV) VERY 


reward or his token of victory. Jewish rabbis were wont to 
speak of their disciples as their crown. Many expositors 
hold that when Paul addresses the Philippians as his crown, 
he is thinking exclusively of the Day of the Lord. But there 
is nothing in his words to preclude the thought that they are 
now his crown as they are now his joy. At the same time we 
know from vers. 20 and 21 of chap. 3 that the Parousia is in 
his mind, and so probably the thought of their being his crown 
on the great day is not absent. We remember how he says to 
the Thessalonians: ‘ For who is our hope, our joy, our crown 
of pride (who but you ?) in the presence of our Lord Jesus 
on his arrival? Why, you, you are our glory and joy!’ 
(IAD nesse2/710,120): 

This is how you must stand firm in the Lord. How? Surely 
as persons who rejoice in the Lord because of their privileges 
and prospects. Only by rejoicing in the Lord shall they be 
able to stand firm in the Lord. The joy of the Lord is to be 
their strength. Thus, and thus only, shall they be proof against 
the malevolence of their persecutors. Often—but not always 
because of identical perils—the Apostle urges his converts to 
stand firm. See 1 Cor. 15:58, 16: 13, Gal. 3:1, 1 Thess. 3: 8. 
Most impressive are the words O my beloved at the end of the 
verse. Paul ‘seems to linger over this theme, as if unable to 
break away from it’ (Lightfoot). 


CHAPTER IV 
EvODIA AND SYNTYCHE (IV. 2, 3) 


I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. 
And you, my true comrade, lend a hand to these women, 
I beg of you; they have fought at my side in the active 
service of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of 
my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life. 


This is the second of the series of paragraphs in which Paul 
seems to be dealing with specific matters mentioned by the 
Philippians in a letter addressed to him. It is tantalizing in 

187 


THE EPISTLE OR (PAUL TO, THESPAILCIRE Ea 


its brevity, and raises many questions which it leaves un- 
answered. 

2 I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the 
Lord. We mention at the outset, in order to set them aside, 
the fantastic attempts of critics from Baur to Hitzig to dis- 
cover in these two names allusions to two parties in the early 
Church. For a statement of these theories see Zahn’s Intro- 
duction, vol. I, pp. 561, 562, and Lightfoot’s detached note on 
“Clement my fellow-labourer ’ on pp. 168-71 of his Philippians, 
Small wonder that Eilicott should speak of such attempts as 
‘monstrous,’ or that Moffatt (Introduction to the Lit. of the 
N.T., p. 171) should describe them as ‘ perverse.’ 

Euodia and Syntyche are names of persons, not of parties. 
In the A.V. the former appears as the name of a man— 
‘Euodias.’ Theodore of Mopsuestia (circa 350-428) tells of 
some who took the second of the two to be a man’s name— 
Syntyches. He also mentions the fact that some held that 
Syntyches was the husband of Euodia and that he was none 
other than the jailer who figures in the story of Acts 16. The 
versions of Tyndale and Cranmer also make the second a 
man’s name. Grotius took both persons to be men. Neither 
Euodias nor Syntyches has been found as the name of a man, 
whereas Euodia and Syntyche, as names of women, are 
common in inscriptions, though neither, as it happens, occurs 
in any of the inscriptions that have been found in Philippi. 
That in the present passage they are the names of two women 
belonging to the Church at Philippi would seem to be put 
beyond reasonable doubt by the expression ‘ these women’ 
in ver. 3, for it is almost impossible to think that these words 
do not look back to the persons spoken of in ver. 2. 

Ramsay suggests that one or other of these two women was 
Lydia, but there is nothing to lift the suggestion out of the 
region of conjecture. A feature of the account of Paul’s 
visits to the cities of Macedonia in Acts 16 and 17 is the 
prominence of women. Lightfoot (pp. 55-7) calls attention 
to the testimony of Macedonian inscriptions which ‘ seem to 
assign to the sex a higher social influence than is common 
among the civilized nations of antiquity ’ (p. 56). 

188 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 2-3 


It is possible that the estrangement of Euodia and Syntyche 
lay at the root of the dissensions which make their presence 
felt so frequently in our epistle. In his appeal to them the 
Apostle significantly repeats the verb I entreat, ‘as if,’ says 
Bengel, “he were exhorting each separately face to face.’ 
This is in keeping with his determination, manifest through- 
out the letter, not to countenance the divisions in the Church. 
The repetition implies that in this quarrel, as in most, there 
was blame on either side. It is strange that the Vulgate 
should here employ two different verbs—vogo and deprecor. 

Paul entreats them to agree in the Lord. The expression 
here rendered to agree is used also in 2: 2, where our trans- 
lation has ‘living in harmony.’ See the note there, and also 
the note on the words ‘to be thinking of you all’ in 1: 7. 
Literally, the phrase may be rendered ‘to think the same 
thing,’ but it means much more than ‘to agree in thought or 
opinion.’ Paul urges the two women to strive after a unity 
of sentiment and feeling, a harmony of life. And he entreats 
them to agree in the Lord. Once again the familiar phrase 
occurs. In Christ would their differences disappear. Let 
them but realize their common relation to him and the 
estrangement would be at an end. Some see in the fact that 
Paul urges them to agree in the Lord an indication that the 
quarrel was a religious controversy ; but whatever the nature 
of the dispute may have been, we cannot think of his urging 
them to agree in any other way than in the Lord. 

The direct appeal to Euodia and Syntyche Paul supplements 3 
by an appeal on their behalf addressed to a third person who 
is asked to exercise a ministry of reconciliation. And you, 
my true comrade, lend a hand to these women, I beg of you. 
The request is in the Greek introduced by a particle which is 
represented in the R.V. by ‘ yea.’ Lightfoot observes that it 
introduces ‘an affectionate appeal.’ Paul uses it also in the 
appeal of Philem. 20. In our translation in the present passage 
there is no actual English word representing the Greek 
particle, but its presence makes itself felt in the tone of 
affectionate urgency which marks the rendering of the appeal. 
When Paul says I beg of you, he employs a different verb from 

189 





THE EPISTLEAOBSPAUL TO. TAHEG PAIL CE AN 


the one he has just used in his appeal to Euodia and Syntyche. 
The verb rendered beg occurs also in 1 Thess. 4:1, 5:12; 
2 Thess. 2: 1, and nowhere else in Paul’s epistles. He uses 
it only in his letters to Macedonian Churches. In 1 Thess. 
4:1 the two verbs ‘ beg’ and ‘entreat’ occur in the same 
sentence, and Moulton and Milligan give an example of the 
same combination from a papyrus ( Vocabulary, p. 255). ‘To 
entreat’ is a more authoritative word than ‘to beg.’ The 
latter is a more friendly word, used more naturally than the 
former in addressing one’s equal. Findlay (on 1 Thess. 4: 1) 
says of the verb ‘ to beg’ that it ‘ conceives the request in a 
question-form (‘‘ Will you do so and so? ’’) and thus gives 
a personal urgency to it.’ 

This third person the Apostle addresses as my true comrade. 
The A.V. and the R.V. both render by ‘true yokefellow,’ 
which brings out the primary significance of the designation. 
Who is the person whom Paul addresses in this way? In 
the attempt to find an answer to this question conjecture has 
been most assiduous. Every possible person has been sug- 
gested, and some that are impossible. Clement of Alexandria 
surmised that the ‘ true comrade’ was the Apostle’s wife, and 
Renan appended to this surmise the further conjecture that 
his wife was none other than Lydia! Trapp succinctly disposes 
of this view with the comment: “Not Paul’s wife, for he had 
none,’ which would seem to be a legitimate deduction from 
1 Cor. 7:7. If Paul had a wife at this time, one wonders 
why she should now be at Philippi; and moreover, if he had 
been addressing a woman, the Greek would have been slightly 
different. Wieseler thought the appeal was addressed to 
Christ, the words being a prayer. But it is in the highest 
degree improbable that the Apostle would introduce into his 
letter the direct speech of his prayer. Nor is it probable that 
he would address Christ as his ‘ yokefellow ’; though this last 
objection could be overcome by giving to the noun its other 
possible, but less probable, meaning of ‘ joiner-together.’ Some 
have seen Barnabas in the true comrade. Others favour Luke 
(see Ramsay, Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen, p. 358, 
and David Smith, Life and Letters of St. Paul, p. 519). Bengel, 

190 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 2-3 


followed by Wesley, suggests Silas. Estius fixes upon Timo- 
theus, and some who favour this suggestion call attention 
to the fact that the same adjective true is applied to Timotheus 
in I Tim. 1: 2, while the cognate adverb is employed in 2 : 20 
of our epistle, where Paul speaks of his ‘ genuine interest ’ in 
the welfare of the Philippians. Victorinus, Grotius, and 
Lightfoot regard Epaphroditus as the person addressed by 
Paul. Neither of these last two views, however, is at all 
probable, for both Timotheus and Epaphroditus were now 
with Paul, and it is hard to believe that words spoken in the 
first instance as an aside in the course of dictation would 
have found their way into the letter. 

The interpretation that commends itself to the majority of 
recent English writers is the one that treats the Greek word 
rendered comrade as a proper name—‘ Synzygos.’ The word 
is printed as a proper name in the margin of Westcott and 
Hort’s Greek Testament ; and in his Introduction to the Lit. 
of the N.T. (p. 171) Moffatt strongly inclines to this view. 
If this be the correct interpretation, the adjective true (see 
the note on the word ‘genuine’ in 2:20) would seem to 
suggest that Paul is playing on the meaning of the name— 
* you who are a Synzygos (comrade) not in name only, but in 
very deed.’ Compare the play on the name Onesimus in 
Philem. 11. It may be wrged against this hypothesis that 
“ Synzygos ’ is nowhere else found as a proper name; but the 
objection is not fatal. It may have been a name assumed at 
baptism. Whether it be a proper name or not, the person 
addressed would be some prominent and influential member 
of the Christian community at Philippi, whose identity would 
be obvious to the readers of the letter. It is possible that they 
had made mention of him in their letter to Paul as standing 
in some sort of relation to the estrangement of Euodia and 
Syntyche. It may be that when he was at Philippi the Apostle 
had been wont to call him his comrade. Chrysostom suggested 
that he might have been the husband or the brother of one 
of the women. If the husband, then it is possible that the 
correct rendering is, not my true comrade, but ‘ true consort,’ 
that is, the true consort of one of the women ; this is a legiti- 

IgI 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


mate rendering, for the word my is not actually represented 
in the Greek. Luther and Ellicott take the person addressed 
by Paul to be the chief of the bishops at Philippi ; but this, of 
course, is mere conjecture ; we do not even know that one of 
the bishops was chief. Clearly the data do not permit of 
certainty. 

Whoever he may have been, he is asked to lend a hand to the 
women. The same verb is used in Luke 5:7. The manner 
of Paul’s appeal to him suggests that the women were them- 
selves endeavouring to adjust their differences, and perhaps 
finding the task none too easy. The plea on their behalf is 
reinforced by means of an argument based upon the services 
they had rendered to the cause of the gospel. They are 
worthy of all the sympathy and help that the true comrade 
can give to them. They have fought, says Paul, at my side 
in the active service of the gospel. Once again the Apostle 
derives his metaphor from the arena. See the note on ‘ fighting 
side by side’ in I : 27—the only other occurrence of the verb 
in the New Testament. It means to ‘ contend or strive along 
with someone else.’ The rendering of the A.V. and the R.V. 
—‘ laboured with me ’—fails to bring out adequately the ideas 
of opposition and strife involved in the word. Euodia and 
Syntyche had at one time been united in strenuous service 
in the face of opposition, and perhaps it was the persecution 
which the Philippian Church was now enduring that was 
prompting them to attempt to bring the estrangement to an 
end. Paulsays they had fought at his side in the active service 
of the gospel, or, more literally, ‘in the gospel,’ the phrase 
denoting the sphere of their joint efforts. For the phrase 
compare Rom. 1:9 and 1 Thess. 3: 2. 

The Apostle adds along with Clement and the rest of my 
fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life. For the 
hypothesis—which originated with Origen and became 
traditional in the Western Church—that the Clement to 
whom Paul alludes is to be identified with Clement of Rome, 
see Lightfoot’s detached note (pp. 168-71) in which the theory 
is examined. It is only a conjecture, and a most improbable 
one at that. 


192 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 2-3 


These words regarding Clement and Paul’s other fellow- 
workers are in our translation rightly taken in conjunction 
with they have fought at my side in the active service of the 
gospel. This is far more satisfactory than the view which 
would attach them to lend a hand to these women. Zahn, 
however, argues for the latter interpretation, and Lightfoot 
strongly inclines to it. Buton @ priori grounds it is not pro- 
bable that Paul would desire a number of persons to engage 
in the delicate task of helping to reconcile two women who 
were at variance. Zahn contends that inasmuch as Paul is 
here emphasizing the claims of Euodia and Syntyche on the 
good offices of his true comrade, his argument would only be 
weakened by the mention of others who had been partners 
with them in the service they had rendered. The mention 
of Clement and the others may, however, be introduced to help 
the true comrade to recall some specific occasion which the 
Apostle has in mind. It may be that Clement and his un- 
named companions had surrendered their lives on that occa- 
sion. The inference is often drawn from the words whose 
names are in the book of life that they were no longer living. 

In the Apocalypse we read five or six times of the ‘ book of 
Silene 372513) 0, 6l7 16, ZO 25,21 © 27); ebut: outside 
of the Apocalypse the expression occurs in the New Testament 
only in our present passage, although the idea embodied in the 
phrase appears in Luke 10: 20 and in 3: 20 of our epistle. 
The phrase or some equivalent is found several times in the 
Old Testament: that is why it is printed in italics in our trans- 
lation. Charles maintains that originally to have one’s name 
enrolled in the book of life implied participation in the temporal 
blessings of the Theocracy; eventually the meaning of the 
expression was changed, ana it came to refer to an immortality 
of blessedness (see his note on 1 Enoch 47:3). God will not 
forget His own, obscure and nameless though they be. 


JOY AND PEACE (Iv. 4-7) 
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, ‘rejoice.’ 4 
Let your forbearance be known to everyone; the Lordis 5 
at hand. Never be anxious, but always make your 6 
193 


THE BPIST LES OFVPAUL 10 TARE PALLIPEEANS 


requests known to God in prayer and supplication with 

7 thanksgiving; so shall God's peace, that surpasses all our 
dreams, keep guard over your hearts and minds in Christ 
Jesus. 


It is the custom of expositors to interpret this paragraph 
against the background suggested by the appeal addressed to 
Euodia and Syntyche. On this view the Apostle is still deal- 
ing with the reciprocal relations of the members of the Chris- 
tian community at Philippi. In harmony with this the word 
rendered ‘ forbearance’ in ver. 5 is interpreted on the lines 
of the definition given of it in Aristotle’s Nicomachean 
Ethics, where it is said to be the spirit that keeps a man from 
insisting on his rights to the detriment of others, and makes 
him willing to accept less than his just due. 

The paragraph, however, as it seems to us, demands a dif- 
ferent background. The Apostle now drops the internal 
dissensions of the Church, and is led by his sympathy with 
his harassed and persecuted readers to address to them some 
further words of comfort and encouragement. The back- 
ground of 4: 4~7 is identical with that of 1 : 27-30 and 3: Ia, 
20,21; 4:1. Notehowin4:5,asin3: 20, 21, appeal is made 
to the great inspiriting fact of the approaching return of the 
Lord. It may be that it was the mention of the ‘ book of life’ 
in 4:3 that induced the Apostle to renew the exhortation to 
rejoice (see on 3 : 1a and 20). 

4 Rejoice in the Lord always: the injunction of 3: Ia is re- 
peated, but now with the addition of always. Their joy is to 
be uninterrupted and unbroken. No passing cloud is to 
darken their serenity. ‘ Rejoice at all times’ is the Apostle’s 
injunction to another Macedonian Church (1 Thess. 5:17); 
and in 2 Cor. 6 : 10 he speaks of himself as ‘ grieved but always 
glad.’ As in 3: 1a, it is in the Lord that he again bids them 
rejoice. ‘As ‘‘ the Lord” is to Paul Jesus risen and reigning, 
to rejoice in him is simply to appropriate and rest upon the 
Christian facts of freedom and redemption won by him for 
men’ (Moffatt, in the Expository Times, vol. ix, p. 335). 
Here as in 3: 1a the margin of the R.V. has ‘ farewell’ for 


194 





CHAPTER IV, VERSES 4-7 


rejoice. Lightfoot would include both meanings; but 
rejoice alone is adequate and preferable. 

In the remainder of the verse the Apostle expresses his 
determination to repeat the exhortation: I will say it again, 
‘rejoice.’ The R.V. also has the future ‘I will say,’ which 
is a more correct rendering than the present (‘I say’) of the 
A.V. We can hardly think that Paul would have expressed 
himself in this way had not the conditions at Philippi been 
such as to make the injunction to rejoice seem almost un- 
reasonable. In spite, however, of annoyance and persecution, 
unbroken joy is possible in the Lord. Kennedy aptly quotes 
George Herbert’s comment on Paul’s twice-repeated injunc- 
tion: “He doubles it to take away the scruple of those that 
might say, what, shall we rejoice in afflictions?’ In the 
Expository Times, vol. xxxv, pp. 151 ff., Rendel Harris makes 
the interesting suggestion that in Paul’s doubled exhortation 
we have an echo of certain words in the closing scene of the 
Eumenides of Aeschylus. ; 

Paul now speaks of the spirit which his readers should 
manifest in the face of persecution. Let your forbearance be 
known to everyone. The word rendered forbearance is in the 
Greek a neuter adjective doing duty as an abstract noun. The 
cognate noun is found in Acts 24: 4 and 2 Cor. 10:1. There 
is no difference of meaning between the noun and the neuter 
adjective as used in our present passage. The adjective 
Occurs also in’ Lim® 3*'3)Titus:3"22; Jas./3 217, 1 Pet. 2:18. 
‘ Forbearance ’ is also the rendering of the text of the R.V. in 
our passage, the margin having ‘gentleness.’ The A.V. 
renders by ‘ moderation.’ The Greek word, as Moulton and 
Milligan remark, is ‘a very elusive term ’ ( Vocabulary, p. 238). 
In the present context it stands for the spirit that does not 
attempt to retaliate, but submissively endures persecution. 
It is used of Jesus in 2 Cor. 10:1. Compare I Pet. 2: 23. 
Wesley renders ‘ yieldingness, sweetness of temper.’ Trench 
(Synonyms, p. 151) includes courtesy, patience, patient mind, 
in his list of renderings of the word in various English trans- 
lations, adding that ‘ gentleness’ commends itself to him as 
the best English equivalent. It may be that here (as seems 


195 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


to be the case in ver. 6) the Apostle has in mind the teaching 
of Jesus. See Matt. 5: 38 ff. 

In support of the interpretation which we give to the word 
we may note that in 2 Cor. 10:1 it is used in conjunction 
with the word which the R.V. renders by ‘ meekness,’ and 
that the adjective is used in 1 Tim. 3 : 3 and Titus 3: 2 side by 
side with the adjective meaning ‘ disinclined to fight.’ So 
in Jas. 3:17 we find it in the company of such adjectives 
as ‘ peaceable’ and ‘conciliatory.’ In one of Moulton and 
Milligan’s examples (Vocabulary, p. 238) the noun stands in 
contrast to insolence and force. In his letter to the Ephesians 
(chap. 10) Ignatius employs the noun in just the sense which, 
as we contend, should be given to it in our present passage. 
The words of Ignatius make it clear that his readers were 
exposed to persecution. We quote Kirsopp Lake’s rendering, 
in which ‘ gentleness ’ stands for the word we are discussing. 
‘Be yourselves gentle,’ writes Ignatius, ‘in answer to their 
wrath ; be humble-minded in answer to their proud speaking ; 
offer prayer for their blasphemy; be steadfast in the faith 
for their error; be gentle for their cruelty, and do not seek 
to retaliate. Let us be proved their brothers by our gentleness 
and let us be imitators of the Lord, and seek who may suffer 
the more wrong, be the more destitute, the more despised.’ 
Paul and Ignatius are urging upon their respective readers 
the same behaviour. 

The Philippian Christians are to let their forbearance be 
known to everyone. The expression suggests that Paul has 
in mind a wider circle than the Christian community. All the 
heathen inhabitants who came into any sort of contact with 
the Christians are to know their spirit of gentle forbearance by 
seeing it in action. The believers are to demonstrate it in all 
their intercourse with them. Compare Matt. 5: 16. 

It is no easy task for human nature to display this spirit 
with unbroken consistency under provocation. That is why 
the Apostle adds that the Lord is at hand, for the very thought 
of his nearness would prove a stimulus. Two interpretations 
of this clause are possible, both of which are allowed by the 
Greek. The clause has been taken to mean (a) ‘ the Lord is 

196 











CHAPTER IV, VERSES 4-7 


nigh unto you, present with you to aid and to bless.’ This 
gives excellent sense. Analogous statements are numerous 
in the Old Testament. Moule thinks Ps. 119 : 151 makes this 
interpretation probable, for there the LXX employs the 
very word that Paul uses here for at hand. The clause has 
also been interpreted to mean (bd) ‘ the Lord is coming soon.’ 
This is the commonly accepted and the more probable inter- 
pretation. The expression ‘ Maran atha’ in 1 Cor. 16: 22 is 
probably the same statement in Aramaic. The phrase in its 
Aramaic form may well have been used as a watchword in 
the early Church. If this second interpretation be accepted, 
we have here the fifth reference in our epistle to the return 
of Christ. The Philippian Christians could afford to be gentle 
and conciliatory, for the Lord at his coming would avenge 
them upon their oppressors. Cf. Rom.12:19. The minatory 
tone of the clause points to the fact that Paul has the pagan 
persecutors in mind. 

The hostile attitude of their pagan neighbours might well 
cause anxiety to arise in the hearts of the Philippian Christians. 
That explains the counsel never be anxious. Here again the 
Apostle is echoing his Master’s teaching. See Matt. 6: 25-34. 
They must never be anxious, or ‘in nothing,’ as the R.V. more 
literally hasit. Paul allows noexception. To the Corinthians 
he writes in a similar strain: ‘ I want you to be free from all 
anxieties (1 Cor. 7732). 

The Apostle points out a more excellent way than the path 
of anxiety. Never be anxious, but always make your requests 
known to God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. 
Always! The A.V. and the R.V. both render more literally 
‘in everything.’ There is an evident contrast with ‘in 
nothing’ in the preceding clause. ‘The way to be anxious 
about nothing is'to be prayerful about everything’ (Rainy, 
Pp. 332). The word rendered ‘request’ occurs also in Luke 
23:24 and xr John 5:15, and means a particular petition 
or the definite object asked for. Prayer and supplication are 
combined also in Eph. 6:18, 1 Tim. 2:1, 5:5. This is 
the only occurrence in our epistle of the word here rendered 
prayer ; it is a more general term than supplication, standing 


197 


THE EPISTLE OF (PAUL TOVTHE\PHILIPPIANS 


as it does for man’s approach to God in the widest sense. The 
narrower and more particular term supplication occurs also in 
1:4 (twice) and 1:19. It means a specific appeal, a petition 
for the supply of a definite want. Though it is possible 
thus to distinguish between prayer and supplication, ‘ the 
two words thus linked together are meant less to be distin- 
guished than to include and enforce the fullest and freest 
‘“ speaking unto the Lord’’’ (Moule). Every possible cause 
of anxiety should be made known to God, or, more literally, 
‘in the presence of God,’ even as the letter of Sennacherib was 
spread before Him by Hezekiah (2 Kings 19: 14, Isa. 37: 14). 
And every request is to be presented with thanksgiving. 
The spirit of gratitude is a necessary element in the prayer 
that is an antidote to anxiety. Prayer and thanksgiving are 
combined also in 1 Thess. 5:17, 18, Col. 4:2, r Tim. 2:1. 
Frequently does the Apostle enjoin upon his readers the 
duty of thanksgiving. Cf. Eph. 5:20 and Col. 4: 2. 

47 If the requests are always thus made known to God, a 
certain consequence inevitably follows: so shall God’s peace, 
that surpasses all our dreams, keep guard over your hearts and 
minds in Christ Jesus. Here only in the New Testament do 
we find the expression God’s peace, for in Col. 3: 15 the true 
reading is ‘ the peace of Christ,’ not ‘the peace of God.’ It 
is called God’s peace because it is His gift and is akin to the 
peace that abidesin Him. Wesley defines it as ‘ that calm, 
heavenly repose, that tranquillity of spirit, which God only 
can give.’ In ver. g God is called ‘the God of peace.’ Cf. 
2 Thess. 3: 16. 

The peace of God is described in the words that surpasses 
all our dreams. Both the A.V. and the R.V. have ‘ which 
passeth all understanding.’ The verb occurs also in 2: 3 and 
3:8. The Greek of the clause is capable of a double inter- 
pretation. The meaning may be that God’s peace accom- 
plishes more than any forethought or scheming on our part 
can ever achieve. This is the interpretation adopted by 
Lightfoot, Vincent, Jones, Plummer, etc. On the other hand, 
the clause may mean that God’s peace is beyond the power of 
man’s mind to comprehend. This is the interpretation 

198 








CHAPTER IV, VERSES ) 4-7 


adopted in our translation, and it is also that of Ellicott, 
Moule, Kennedy, Beet, etc. Between the two interpretations 
it is by no means easy to decide. In favour of the former it is 
sometimes urged that the latter gives a sense which has no 
special relevancy. In favour of the latter is the fact that it is 
the interpretation of the Greek expositors. It is supported 
too by Eph. 3:20: ‘Now to him who by the action of his 
power within us can do all things, aye far more than we ever 
ask or imagine,’ where the verb ‘imagine’ is cognate with 
the noun used in our clause. Lightfoot, though he rejects 
this interpretation, admits that it receives strong support 
from this Ephesian text. Either explanation gives good 
sense, and there is no compelling reason for accepting one 
rather than the other. Some interpreters would combine 
the two. 

The verb shall keep guard over appears in the A.V. as 
“shall keep’ and in the R.V. as ‘shall guard,’ on both of 
which the rendering of our translation is an improvement. 
The same verb occurs in 2 Cor. 11 : 32, Gal. 3: 23, 1 Pet. 1: 5. 
It is the naturai and usual word to employ when speaking of 
a garrison keeping guard over a city, and it is more than 
possible that Paul had that metaphor in his mind. Philippi 
was guarded by a Roman garrison, and the figure would appeal 
with special force to the readers. It may be that their pagan 
persecutors were alleging that the adherents of the new faith 
had forfeited their right to the protection of the city garrison. 
Paul reminds them that they have an inward sentinel-—none 
other than God’s own peace. 

This peace of God would keep guard over their hearts and 
minds. The same words are used in the A.V. to render the 
objects of the verb. The R.V. has ‘ your hearts and your 
thoughts.’ The word rendered heart is found also in 1:7, 
where our translation has ‘mind.’ We there saw that it 
frequently denotes the seat of the intelligence. The word 
rendered mind in the present verse is beyond doubt used in 
2 Cor. 3:14, 4:4 to denote the faculty of thought. Whether 
it is used in that sense here is doubtful. If it is so used, then 
Paul speaks of two faculties, in which case heart possibly 


199 


THE EPISTLE, OR@PAUL TO THEVPRILIPEI ARS 


stands for the seat of the affections and the will, and mind for 
the seat of the intelligence. 

It is possible, however, that the second term means not 
mind but ‘thought.’ ‘ Thought’ is the more natural meaning 
of the word considered by itself. If we give it that meaning 
here, then the Apostle’s promise is that God’s peace will keep 
guard both over the minds of his readers and over the thoughts 
that arise out of them. It is not easy to reach a definite 
decision. It may perhaps be contended that the metaphor 
of keeping guard over suits the faculty of thought somewhat 
better than it suits the thoughts that are its product—a con- 
sideration which lends support to the rendering adopted in our 
translation. 

Paul brings this noble sentence to a close with the great 
phrase in Christ Jesus. It is the third reference to Christ in 
this brief paragraph! Some interpreters speak of Christ 
Jesus as the citadel in which the believer is guarded by God’s 
peace. But such a view only confuses the figure. If the 
metaphor of a garrison is in Paul’s mind at all, it is man’s 
inner being that is pictured as a citadel over which God’s 
peace keeps guard. The phrase in Christ Jesus is introduced 
to remind the readers that outside of him there is no guardian- 
ship, no security, no peace, no joy. When God’s peace leaves 
the citadel, it is a sign that peril is at hand; the unclean 
spirits of vindictiveness and anxiety are claiming again their 
old habitation. Kennedy quotes Rendel Harris (Memoranda 
Sacra, p. 130) to the effect that ‘ this peace is like some magic 
mirror, by the dimness growing on which we may discern the 
breath of an unclean spirit that would work us ill.’ The 
paragraph opened with joy: it ends with peace. If God’s 
peace be not in the heart, then assuredly there is no joy. 
They alone whose hearts are guarded by His peace are able to 
sing His song. 


PAGAN MORALITY AND CHRISTIAN TRUTH (Iv. 8, 9) 

8 Finally, brothers, keep in mind whatever is true, whatever is 
worthy, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is 
attractive, whatever is high-toned, all excellence, all 

200 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 8-9 


merit. Practise also what you have learned and received 9 


from me, what you heard me say and what you saw me 
do ; then the God of peace will be with you. 


This paragraph may well have been written in answer to a 
question from Philippi. Often, however, it is supposed to have 
been added to prevent a possible misunderstanding of the 
paragraph that immediately precedes. Vers. 6 and 7, it is 
thought, might possibly have given the readers the impression 
that all that was required of them in order to secure the 
guardianship of God’s peace was that they should make their 
requests known to God. Paul anticipates any such miscon- 
ception—so the exponents of this view maintain—by declaring 
that if the peace of God is to be with them, they must keep in 
their minds all things good and noble, and put into practice 
the things they had learned from him, whether by direct 
instruction or through his example. 

Vers. 8 and 9, however, when subjected to closer scrutiny, 
would seem to require some other explanation to account for 
their presence. In ver. 8 Paul seems to be thinking not of the 
specific virtues of the new faith, but rather of ‘pagan’ 
morality. Of the eight words employed in this great cata- 
logue of virtues, two are found here only in the New Testa- 
ment ; another occurs nowhere else in the Pauline epistles, 
and another still nowhere else except in the Pastorals. This 
suggests that some at least of the words were not everyday 
terms in the Christian vocabulary. The list reminds one of 
the catalogues of virtues to be found in the writings of the 
Greek moralists. Some of the terms, as we shall see when 
we examine them, suggest certain features of Roman life and 
institutions. The probability is strong that the Apostle is 
here commending what was good in pagan life and morality. 
Plummer quotes from von Soden’s Early Christian Literature, 
p. 113, the statement that ‘nowhere has the born Jew 
approached so closely to the moral ideal of the Greek philo- 
sophers as in the conceptions of honour and worth which he 
here strings together.’ 

Now, there must have been some special reason to account 

2or 


THE EPISTLESROTEPAUL TO THECPHILIPPIiAgs 


for the penning of this elaborate injunction to keep in mind 
the virtues of pagan ethics. We cannot do much more than 
surmise what that reason may have been. The Philippian 
Christians, as we learn from other parts of our epistle, were 
being persecuted. Were their persecutors claiming superiority 
for their own virtues? Did the fact that they were being 
persecuted tend to blind the Christians to what was good in 
the heathen life by which they were surrounded? Did they 
regard pagan excellences as demonic caricatures of Christian 
virtues ? Were they troubled by the problem of the relation 
of pagan to Christian morality ? Had they inquired of the 
Apostle what should be their attitude to pagan ethics? It 
may be that there existed among them a difference of opinion 
on this question ; that may explain the promise that if they 
give obedience to the Apostle’s injunction, the God of peace 
will be with them. Is it because he is anxious to conciliate 
some of them that Paul once again introduces the word 
brothers ? 

8 Finally renders the same Greek expression that in 3: Ia +s 
rendered ‘well then.’ See the note there. The use of the 
expression in the present verse may be due to the conscious- 
ness on Paul’s part that the letter is now drawing towards its 
close. But even so it is not probable that he intended to 
convey exactly the meaning that is conveyed by the English 
word ‘finally,’ seeing that the important paragraph dealing 
with the gift of the Philippians (vers. 10-20) is to follow. It 
may be that the phrase here, as often elsewhere, does little 
more than mark a transition from one subject to another. 

In his catalogue of virtues the Apostle employs six adjec- 
tives and twonouns. In the Greek the adjectives are all in the 
plural. Both the A.V. and the R.V. render literally ‘ what- 
soever things are true,’ etc. The singular of our translation 
(whatever is true, etc.) expresses the meaning with equal 
exactness. Let us first look at the six adjectives in turn. 
The sixfold repetition of whatever is imparts to the verse a 
stately impressiveness. 

True: so also the A.V. and the R.V. render the first of 
the adjectives. The reference must not be confined to truth- 

202 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 8-9 


fulness in speech, as Bengel’s comment—in sermone—would 
restrict it. Veracity of course is included; but Paul has in 
mind all that is true in thought, disposition, and deed. Sincerity 
is covered by the phrase. Moulton and Milligan remark that 
in the papyri the adjective “seems always to bear the normal 
meaning of ‘‘ true in fact ’’’ ( Vocabulary, p. 21). 

Worthy: the A.V. has ‘ honest ’ in its text, with ‘ venerable ’ 
in the margin; the R.V. has ‘honourable’ and ‘ reverend’ 
in its text and margin respectively. The adjective is found 
elsewhere in the New Testament only in 1 Tim. 3:8 and rr, 
Titus 2:2, and the cognate noun only in 1 Tim. 2: 2, 3: 4, 
Titus 2:7. Etymologically it is related to a verb which means 
to reverence or worship. It is frequently used in the Greek 
writers of the gods and goddesses—of Apollo, Demeter, Pallas 
Athena, and many more. It is used also to describe things 
associated with the gods and goddesses, such as temples and 
sacrifices. It is not restricted, however, to these uses, for it is 
applied to human beings and to things other than those we 
have just specified—more often to persons than to things. 
The natural words by which to render it into English are 
such as august, solemn, noble, majestic, dignified. Worthy 
scarcely does justice to the richness of its connotation. When 
the A.V. was produced, the word ‘ honest ’ was nearer in mean- 
ing to the Latin honestus than it is to-day, signifying as it then 
did ‘ worthy of honour ’ or ‘ regarded with honour.’ Maurice 
Jones remarks that here the adjective ‘ would represent the 
““ gravitas,” the noble seriousness of the best Roman type.’ 

Just: so also the A.V. and the R.V. render. In the papyri 
the word is applied to such things as a ‘just ’ measure or a 
‘just’ rule (Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 162). The 
widest possible significance must be given to the word in our 
passage ; it describes that which is in accordance with the 
loftiest conception of right. Paul was probably thinking of 
the estimable features of Roman law and government. 

Pure: here again our translation agrees with the A.V. 
and the R.V. The cognate adverb is used in 1:17. Like 
the word rendered worthy, this word also is in the Greek 
writers ‘frequently applied to heathen gods and goddesses ’ 

203 


THE EPISTLE CrPeraUuL TO°fHESRAILIPPIANS 


(Trench, Synonyms, p. 333). Trench also observes that it is 
the adjective ‘ predominantly employed ’ ‘ to express freedom 
from impurities of the flesh.’ It should not, of course, be 
restricted to that meaning in the present passage. Moulton and 
Milligan ( Vocabulary, p. 5), after giving examples of its various 
uses in the papyri, remark that ‘ the adjective and its deriva- 
tives may accordingly take a wide meaning, as wide as our 
pure in the ethical sense.’ Jones observes that ‘ there would 
be associated with the word the thought of domestic purity 
which in the best Roman life reached a high standard.’ 

Attractive: both the A.V. and the R.V. have ‘ lovely.’ 
This is the solitary occurrence of the word in the New Testa- 
ment. It can be used both of persons and of things. Its 
primary meaning is ‘love-inspiring.’” When the A.V. was 
first issued, the English word ‘lovely ’ still retained a sense 
of its derivation and meant ‘ worthy of being loved. When 
used of things, the adjective here employed means pleasing, 
grateful, attractive. There are in Sirach two interesting 
examples of its use as applied to persons. One is in 4:7: 
‘Make thyself attractive to the congregation,’ or, as the R.V. 
renders, ‘ Get thyself the love of the congregation.’ The other 
occurs in 20:13: ‘He that is wise in words shall make 
himself beloved’ (R.V.). In the next section of our epistle 
we shall find several words or expressions that are used in 
Sirach. One wonders whether Paul had been reading Sirach 
just before writing to the Philippians, and whether this word 
attractive was suggested to him by the passages we have 
quoted. 

High-toned: both the A.V. and the R.V. have ‘ of good 
report,’ the latter also having ‘ gracious’ in its margin. Like . 
the preceding adjective, this one also is in the New Testament 
confined to this single occurrence. In 2 Cor. 6:8 our trans- 
lation agrees with the A.V. and the R.V. in rendering the 
cognate noun by ‘good report.’ In our present passage 
the rendering ‘ of good report’ is based on the assumption 
that the root-meaning of the adjective is ‘ well-spoken of.’ 
The more probable primary meaning, however, is ‘ well- 
speaking.’ From this are derived such meanings as uttering- 

204 


23 Sc Se pe Se 





$y re ae 





CHAPTER IV, VERSES 8-9 


sounds-of-good-omen, fair-sounding, auspicious. The adjective 
would apply to anything that had a good ring. ‘ High- 
toned ’ is an exact English equivalent. Moulton and Milligan 
observe that ‘a suggestion of the earlier associations of this 
word may perhaps be found in Phil. 4:8, where it recalls 
Greek ethical teaching, and “‘ signifies the delicacy which guards 
the lips, that nothing may be expressed in public worship that 
could disturb devotion or give rise to scandal ”’’ ( Vocabulary, 
p. 267; the quotation in the extract is from a work by 
E. Curtius). 

Lest any virtue should perchance have been omitted the 
Apostle appends the words all excellence, all merit. The more 
literal rendering of the A.V. and the R.V. runs: ‘if there 
be any virtue, and if there be any praise.’ Nowhere else 
in the Pauline epistles is the word rendered excellence to be 
found ; and elsewhere in the New Testament it occurs only in 
I Pet.2: 9 and 2 Pet.1:3and5. The English word ‘ virtue,’ 
as Moulton and Milligan (p. 75) observe, “is too narrow for a 
word which had nearly all the forces of our adjective ‘‘ good.” ’ 
Excellence is a more satisfactory, because a more inclusive, 
rendering ; and it is interesting to note that in the later papyri 
the Greek word is used like our ‘ Excellency’ as a title of 
courtesy (see Moulton and Milligan, p. 76). Lightfoot’s 
explanation of the word—‘ whatever value may reside in your 
old heathen conception of virtue ’—suits our view of the 
passage as a whole. The word is one of the great terms of 
heathen ethics, and to explain its rarity in the New Testament 
we draw once more on Moulton and Milligan: ‘ The limitation 
of this word to four occurrences in N.T. may possibly be 
connected with the very width of its significance in non- 
Christian ethics: it had not precision enough for large use 
in Christian language ’ (p. 75). 

For merit both the A.V. and the R.V. have ‘ praise.’ Praise 
is the common meaning of the word. In 1:11 it is used of 
the praise of God. Nine out of its eleven New Testament 
occurrences are in Paul. Here the word evidently stands for 
that which deserves praise. Hort (on 1 Pet. 1: 7) observes 
that whenever the Greeks use the word carefully ‘ they 

205 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


include in it moral approbation.’ Merit brings out the 
meaning well. 

According to our translation, Paul urges his readers to 
keep in mind the things to which these great and noble terms 
apply. The A.V. and the text of the R.V. have ‘ think on 
these things,’ while the margin of the latter has ‘ take account 
of.’ The verb is common in the New Testament, particularly 
in the epistles of Paul. It occurs in 3:13 of our epistle, 
where the Apostle says: ‘I for one do not consider myself to- 
have appropriated this.” In the papyri, too, the verb ‘is 
common in the sense of “‘ reckon,’ “‘ put down to one’s 
account ’’’ (Moulton and Milligan, p. 377). Keep in mind is 
scarcely adequate. Paul tells his readers to ‘take into 
account ’ or ‘ not to leave out of account’ the virtues he has 
enumerated. The Philippian Christians cannot afford to 
ignore the great virtues of pagan morality. Let them reflect 
upon them and endeavour to form a true judgment regarding 
them, so as to give them their rightful place in their lives. 

g Not only must the Philippian Christians take into account 
all that is of worth in pagan morality: they must also put 
into practice the things they have learned from the Apostle 
himself. No contrast is intended between thinking in the one 
case and practising in the other ; for the ‘ thinking’ in ver. 8 
has, as Ellicott says, ‘a distinctly practical reference.’ A 
distinction, however, is intended—and our translation makes 
this clear—between the things which Paul in ver. 8 urges his 
readers to take into account and the things which in ver. g 
he urges them to practise. 

They are to practise ‘the things which you learned and 
received and heard and saw in me.’ So the words run when 
literally rendered. The first pair of these four verbs refer to 
the definite Christian instruction which the Philippians had 
received from the Apostle ; the second pair to the example he 
had set them. In our translation these clauses are thus 
rendered: what you have learned and received from me, 
what you heard me say and what you saw me do. The words 
from me are not actually represented in the Greek, but must 
be understood from the ‘in me’ of the next clause. To learn 

206 


} 
. 
. 
; 





CHAPTER IV, VERSES 8-9 


and to receive are by some expositors distinguished as 
mental apprehension and moral approbation respectively, 
and the distinction may well be intended, for the verb 
rendered ‘to receive’ seems at times to mean ‘to accept, 
to approve.’ 

There is room for doubt whether the rendering what you 
heard me say correctly interprets the clause “ the things which 
you heard in me.’ Unless we are to think that Paul makes a 
distinction between his formal instruction and his informal 
talk—which is scarcely probable—this rendering makes the 
clause identical in meaning with the words which imme- 
diately precede. What the Apostle means, as we think, is 
‘ what you heard of as being in me and what you have actually 
seen in me,’ or in other words, ‘my demeanour as you heard 
of it and as you saw it.’ When he speaks of their ‘ hearing’ 
of his demeanour, we are not forced to conclude that he is 
thinking only of his behaviour when he was away from 
Philippi, for even when he was in their city the whole body of 
Philippian Christians could not possibly see and observe him 
all the time. They would tell each other of what they had 
individually seen of his demeanour. Their knowledge of his 
life even when at Philippi would be dependent in part on 
hearsay. The jailer, for example, would tell of his behaviour 
in the prison. It is possible, however, that Paul has in mind 
the reports which had reached Philippi of his demeanour in 
other places. 

The paragraph ends with a promise of the blessing that will 
be theirs if obedience be given to the double injunction. 
Then the God of peace will be with you. Then is an improve- 
ment on the ‘and’ of the A.V. and the R.V., for the clause 
describes a result that will follow if heed be given to the 
commands. God is called the God of peace also in Rom. 15 : 33, 
16: 20, 1 Thess. 5: 23, Heb. 13:20. In 2 Cor. 13:11 He is 
called ‘ the God of love and peace.’ In 2 Thess. 3 : 16 Christ 
is ‘ the Lord of peace.’ Cf. also 1 Cor. 14: 33. The promise 
of ver. 9 is greater and more wonderful even than that of 
ver. 7; for it is now declared not merely that God’s peace will 
be with them, but God Himself, the author and fountain of 

207 


THE EPISTLE OF “PAUL TOV THES PHILIPPIANS 


peace. Divine peace in all the varieties of its manifestations 
will abound if the God of peace be with them. 


GRATITUDE AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY (IV. I0-20) 


10 It was a great joy to me in the Lord that your care for me could 


II 
I2 


revive again; for what you lacked was never the care but 
the chance of showing it. Not that I complain of want, 
for I have learned how to be content wherever Iam. I 
know how to live humbly ; I also know how to live in 
prosperity. I have been initiated into the secret for all 
sorts and conditions of life, for plenty and for hunger, for 
prosperity and for privations. In him who strengthens 
me I am able for anything. But you were kind enough 
to take your share in my trouble. You Philippians are 
well aware that in the early days of the gospel, when I had 
left Macedonia, no church but yourselves had any financial 
dealings with me ; even when I was in Thessalonica, you 
sent money more than once for my needs. It is not the 
money I am anxious for ; what I am anxious for is the 
interest that accumulates in this way to your divine credit ! 
Your debt to me is fully paid and more than paid! I am 
amply supplied with what you have sent by Epaphroditus, 
a fragrant perfume, the sort of sacrifice that God approves 
and welcomes. My God will supply all your own needs 
from his wealth in Glory in Christ Jesus. Glory to God 
our Father for ever and ever: Amen. 


Now at last Paul speaks specifically of the gift which the 
Philippians had sent to him. The particle with which this 
paragraph is introduced is not actually represented in our 
translation. In the A.V. and the R.V. it appears as ‘ but.’ 
According to Lightfoot, the particle here ‘ arrests a subject 
which is in danger of escaping.’ ‘It is,’ he adds, ‘as if the 
Apostle said ‘‘ I must not forget to thank you for your gift.” ’ 
The particle, however, affords no justification whatsoever for 
the suggestion that the epistle came near to being sent off 
without the present paragraph. It is frequently used when 

208 





CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


transition is made to a fresh subject, and may well be omitted 
in an English translation. 

It is the fashion to assume that the present paragraph is 
Paul’s first expression of thanks for the gift ; but the assump- 
tion seems to us to contradict all the available evidence. We 
learn from 2 : 25-30 that in the interval that had passed since 
the coming of the gift, news had passed from Ephesus (where 
Paul now is) to Philippi and again from Philippi to Ephesus. 
That in itself almost amounts to a proof that in the course of 
that interval letters had passed between Paul and the Philip- 
pians. Of this conclusion ample corroboration is furnished 
by the present paragraph, for it permits us to deduce by fair 
inference that a letter had come from Philippi along with the 
gift, that Paul had already replied to that letter, and that the 
Philippians had written to him a second time complaining of 
what appeared to them to be a lack of adequate appreciation 
of their kindness. It is to this second letter from Philippi 
that the Apostle makes reply in our epistle. See the paper on 
“The First and Second Epistles to the Philippians’ in the 
Expository Times for December 1922. 

The position of the paragraph at the very close of the epistle 
lends some slight support to the contention that this is not 
Paul’s first expression of thanks. It is possible that passing 
allusions to the gift are to be detected earlier in the letter, as, 
for example, in 1:5. But the Apostle, as Kennedy puts it, 
“has not, up till now, expressly thanked them for their generous 
gift.’ Had the present letter been the first to go to Philippi 
with his thanks, he would surely not have deferred his reference 
to their gift until he had said everything else that he had to 
say. There is, too, a certain indirectness in his manner of 
expressing his thanks which accords with the view that he 
had already written to thank the Philippians. 

The Apostle’s extraordinary emphasis on his independence 
in this paragraph points to the same conclusion; for such 
emphatic insistence on his own self-sufficiency is neither 
natural nor seemly unless it be an expansion in self-defence of 
some earlier statement which had been misconstrued by his 
correspondents. A passing allusion to his independence 

209 


THE EPISTLE: OF "PAUL. TO (THE PoHILIPPIANS 


might conceivably have been introduced into an initial expres- 
sion of thanks, but scarcely so pronounced a declaration as 
meets us in this paragraph. 

Furthermore, a note of rebuke can be clearly detected in 
the Apostle’s words. It is true that he rebukes with gentle- 
ness and delicacy ; none the less the presence of the rebuke 
is unmistakable (see the notes on vers. 15 and 18). The 
censure becomes more intelligible if Paul is defending himself 
against a misinterpretation of something he had previously 
said about the gift or about his own attitude thereto. As we 
shall see, the phraseology of ver. 15 suggests that it was the 
Philippians themselves who first introduced into the corres- 
pondence the mention of their previous acts of kindness ; and 
as we may safely assume that they would not have done this 
in the letter that accompanied the gift, we can only conclude 
that their doing so was the outcome of resentment caused 
by something that had been said by Paul in his first letter of 
thanks. 

The very structure of the present paragraph makes plausible 
a surmise regarding the statement made in Paul’s first letter 
and resented by the Philippians ; for the passage exhibits a 
seemingly nervous alternation between gratitude and appre- 
ciation on the one hand, and insistence on his independence 
and self-sufficiency on the other. Gratitude or appreciation 
is expressed in ver. Io, vers. 14-16, and vers. 18-20, whereas 
the intervening verses (namely, vers. II-13, and ver. 17) set 
forth the Apostle’s independence. The very manner in which 
the change is made from gratitude to independence or back 
from independence to gratitude shows that the Apostle is 
somewhat anxiously endeavouring to strike the balance 
between the two—to avoid on the one side the Scylla of 
seeming to lose his independence when he is appreciative, and 
on the other side the Charybdis of appearing to be lacking in 
appreciation when insisting on his independence. We seem 
to be driven to the conclusion that he was conscious of some 
constraint. He does not write as one who is free to express 
his thanks in a straightforward, natural way. The method 
he adopts is intelligible only on the supposition that he is 

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CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


expanding in self-defence some previous statement which his 
readers had misconstrued. If our reasoning is sound, it 
follows that in his first letter the Apostle had said (a) that 
he was thankful for the gift, but (b) that he was not in actual 
need of it. The latter statement it was that gave offence to 
the Philippians, for to them it appeared to point to a want of 
appreciation ; and in their chagrin they remind the Apostle 
of the occasions on which he had been glad to receive their 
help. Paul, however, does not recant ; on the contrary, he 
repeats his earlier declarations, though not in the brief form in 
which they were originally made. He expands, enlarges, and 
explains. The present paragraph is but a fuller statement of 
his gratitude and his independence, and the strange alternation 
that marks it is intelligible only when seen against some such 
background as we have sketched. 

What was it that led the Apostle to say in his first letter 
that he was not in actual need of the help that the Philippians 
had sent to him? The answer to this question is suggested 
by ver. 10. There Paul tells of his great joy that (as the 
R.V. literally renders) ‘now at length ye have revived your 
thought for me.’ It is often said with truth that the words 
rendered ‘ now at length ’ do not of necessity involve reproach, 
and it is also true that the Apostle adds a clause—for what you 
lacked was never the care but the chance of showing it— 
which makes it clear that he was fully aware that the Philip- 
pians were not responsible for the delay. But evensothe words 
“now at length’ might easily have conveyed to the readers 
the impression that Paul was annoyed and aggrieved because 
of the delay. They would probably have read in them a 
rebuke of their tardiness. The only reasonable explanation 
of the choice by Paul of words capable of being thus construed 
is that he is quoting words that had first been used by the 
Philippians themselves. The phrase ‘now at length’ must 
have occurred in an apology for delay which they had sent to 
Paul, and the natural place for such an apology would be in the 
letter that accompanied the gift. Desiring to assuage their 
regret at the delay, the Apostle—so we surmise—told them 
that he was not actually in need of the help they had sent. 

2IT 


THE EPISTLE OF “PAUL TO THE PRILIPFIANS 


His disavowal of need, however, though made with kindly 
intent, was read as evidence of want of appreciation, provok- 
ing the reply to which Paul makes answer in our epistle. 
Instead of mitigating their remorse, it evoked a recital of the 
occasions on which the Apostle had been glad to receive 
their assistance. Paul’s reply is the noble passage we are now 
examining. 

It is doubtful whether there is in the passage as much 
pleasantry as some writers think. The use of financial terms 
is unmistakable and sheds a certain glow of playfulness over 
the paragraph ; but the tone of the passage is too serious to 
admit of much pleasantry, for there quivers through it an 
anxious desire to banish misunderstanding from the minds of 
the readers and disappointment from their hearts. 

Whether this be the Apostle’s first acknowledgment of 
the gift, or, as we have argued, the second, no other acknow- 
ledgment comparable with it in sublimity has survived in 
the letters of the past. ‘The passage,’ says von Soden, 
‘presents as tactful a treatment of a delicate matter as can 
well be found in the whole range of high literature’ (quoted 
by Plummer, p. 99). 

Io. It was a great joy to me in the Lord that your care for me 
could revive again. The past tense—‘ it was a great joy ’—is 
commonly interpreted as an epistolary past. According to 
this interpretation, the joy is that which the Apostle feels as 
he writes but which would be in the past when the letter was 
read at Philippi. This interpretation underlies and explains 
the present tense ot the R.V. If, however, our reading of the 
situation is correct, the past tense admits of a more probable 
explanation. It describes the Apostle’s feeling when he 
received the gift. So far from being indifferent or ungrateful 
Paul experienced a great joy. And it was a great joy in the 
Lord. In 3:1 and 4:4 he enjoins the Philippians to rejoice 
‘in the Lord.’ In the present verse the phrase signifies that 
his joy was in keeping with his relation to his Lord; it was 
free from any tincture of ingratitude or resentment such as 
would be unworthy of that relation. 

The ground of his joy is expressed in the words that your 

212 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


care for me could revive again. This rendering has no adequate 
equivalent for the ‘ now at length ’ of the R.V. which we have 
already discussed. The very same expression is used in 
Rom. 1:10, where our translation has ‘at last.’ We must 
not place any emphasis on the word could in the rendering of 
the present clause, as if Paul were surprised that their care for 
him should revive. There is no hint in his words that he had 
given up hope of witnessing its revival. The next clause shows 
that he was aware that the possibility of its revival was present 
all along. Could revive again in our rendering means ‘ was 
enabled to revive again.’ 

Paul uses a rare word for revive, this being its only occurrence 
in the New Testament. It suggests the picture of a tree 
putting on fresh foliage after the winter. The verb is found 
in Sirach 50:10. As was observed in the note on the word 
‘attractive ’ in ver. 8, the present context exhibits some words 
or phrases found in Sirach; and it is not impossible that 
Paul had just been reading that book. It is a Greek verb that 
underlies the word care in the present clause—the verb that 
is used in the phrase ‘to be thinking of you’ in 1:7, and 
frequently elsewhere in our epistle. See on 1:7. It is not 
because the gift of the Philippians has come to him that Paul 
rejoices, but rather because their care for him has revived. 

To avert the possibility of their reading into his words a 
censure of their tardiness, the Apostle adds: for what you 
lacked was never the care but the chance of showing it. Here 
again he employs a verb (‘ to be without opportunity ’) which 
occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. What precisely 
was it that robbed the Philippians of the chance of showing 
their care ? Various answers have been given to this question. 
Ramsay has suggested that towards the end of his career 
family property came to Paul which enabled him to meet the 
expenses incident to an appeal to the Emperor (see St. Paul 
the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, pp. 310-13) ; and some 
scholars have maintained that it was the coming of this pro- 
perty that deprived the Philippians of the chance of helping 
him. Ramsay indeed is of the opinion that the Apostle was 
still provided with ample means when he wrote our epistle. 

213 


THE EPISTLE OF (PAUL TO (DHE RPE PEI AN 


‘Tt is plain,’ he says, ‘ that he did not actually need the help 
that they now sent’ (op. cit., p. 359). The impression left on 
our mind by the present passage is utterly opposed to this. 
And even if it were possible to demonstrate that Kamsay’s 
suggestion that property came to the Apostle is in accordance 
with the facts, the Ephesian origin of our epistle would lessen 
the likelihood that the coming of the patrimony had anything 
whatsoever to do with the Philippians’ lack of opportunity to 
manifest their care. The lack is more likely to have been due 
to some disability on their part than to the absence of need on 
the Apostle’s part. Chrysostom surmised that it was their 
poverty that made it impossible for them to send help. Or 
perhaps no messenger was available to take the gift. In 
2 Cor. 8:2 Paul speaks of the ‘ deep poverty ’ of the Churches 
of Macedonia. 

Ir Vers. 11-13 contain Paul’s first statement of his indepen- 
dence. The words not that, with which it is introduced, show 
that its object is to keep the readers from drawing an erroneous 
conclusion from the declaration of his joy in ver. 10. The 
words not that I complain of want may be literally rendered 
(as in the A.V. and the R.V.) ‘not that I speak in respect of 
want,’ that is, ‘it is not the fact that you have relieved my 
want that makes me say what I have just said.’ He disclaims 
an attitude to want that would make its removal a ground for 
joy. In itself this clause does not decide whether or not Paul 
was now provided with means. The context, however, seems 
to us to show unmistakably that he was not. The word here 
used for want occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in 
Mark 12: 44. 

Paul proceeds to justify the assertion that the relief of his 
want was not the cause of his joy. For I have learned, he says, 
how to be content wherever Iam. The pronoun is emphatic: 
Ihave learned. However rare an achievement it might be to 
reach this state, he had reached it. The adjective rendered 
content occurs here only in the New Testament, though the 
cognate noun is found in 2 Cor. 9:8 and 1 Tim. 6:6. ‘Con- 
tent’ is also the rendering of the A.V. and the R.V., but it 
scarcely does justice to Faul’s adjective, which means ‘ self- 

214 








CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


sufficient ’ or ‘independent.’ The adjective was common with 
the Stoics to describe the man who was self-sufficient for all 
circumstances. Paul’s self-sufficiency, however, as ver. 13 
shows differed toto caelo from that of the Stoics. ‘ Thesyllable 
self- states not the source, but the inwardness, of this suffi- 
ciency ’ (Beet). The clause wherever I am, if literally rendered 
would be ‘in the circumstances in which I am,’ and might, 
taken alone, mean simply ‘in my present circumstances’ ; 
but the context shows that the meaning here must be ‘ in 
whatever circumstances I find myself.’ 

This verse expands and explains the second half of ver. 11. 12 
I know how to live humbly; I also know how to live in pros- 
perity. The main idea in Paul’s mind when he speaks of 
living humbly is that of being in want. The verb rendered 
to live humbly is employed in classical Greek, as Moule points 
out, of the falling of a river in drought, and it is not impossible 
that the figure was present to the Apostle’s mind. The same 
verb is used in 2: 8 (‘he humbly stooped ’) and also in 2 Cor. 
I1:7 and 12:21. For Paul’s own account of his privations 
See I Cor. 4: 11-13 and 2 Cor. II: 23-27. Privations, how- 
ever, could do him no harm. And he was equally immune 
from harm when fortune smiled: I also know how to live in 
prosperity. Very impressive is the repetition of I know—he 
knew the one secret as thoroughly as he knew the other. 
‘Sound bodies,’ says Trapp, ‘can bear sudden alternations of 
heat and cold.’ ‘ For one man,’ says Carlyle, ‘ who can stand 
prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity ’ 
(Heroes, 5). 

The remainder of the verse consists of a more elaborate 
statement of Paul’s self-sufficiency and his consequent adapta- 
bility to varied circumstances. I have been initiated into the 
secret for all sorts and conditions of life, for plenty and for 
hunger, for prosperity and for privations. The word ‘ initiate’ 
was the technical term for initiating into the Mystery Cults, 
and as such would be familiar to the readers. It came to be 
used without this technical connotation, but it is by no means 
improbable that the original meaning was in Paul’s mind as 
he wrote. The present participle of the verb was used in later 

215 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS 


Greek to denote a candidate for baptism (see Moulton and 
Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 418). This is the solitary occurrence 
of the word in the New Testament. The A.V. has ‘I am 
instructed,’ and the R.V. ‘ I have learned the secret.’ It may 
be that its use implies (as Kennedy suggests) ‘a difficult 
process to be gone through.’ 

The words for all sorts and conditions of life represent 
certain Greek words which may be literally rendered, as in 
the R.V., ‘in everything and in all things.’ The A.V. 
wrongly takes the former half of the expression to mean 
‘everywhere.’ It is not easy to differentiate with precision 
between ‘in everything ’ and ‘in all things.’ The distinction 
commonly drawn is that the former means ‘ in each particular 
circumstance,’ and the latter ‘in all circumstances collec- 
tively’; but the whole phrase is probably nothing but a 
vague general expression, analogous to the English ‘ all and 
every,’ bearing just such a meaning as is given to it in our 
translation. The four expressions for plenty, for hunger, for 
prosperity, for privations represent four infinitives in the 
Greek. For prosperity renders the same verb that is used 
earlier in this verse (to live in prosperity), and comes again in 
ver. 18. For privations renders a verb cognate with the word 
‘want ’ in ver. II. | 

I3 This verse is a general statement of the Apostle’s self- 
sufficiency, and sets forth its source and inspiration. In him 
who strengthens me I am able for anything. Paul’s independ- 
ence is the outcome of his dependence upon Another. Maurice 
Jones appositely quotes G. G. Findlay, who in his Christian 
Doctrine and Morals says: ‘The self-sufficiency of the 
Christian is relative: an independence of the world through 
dependence upon God. The Stoic self-sufficiency pretends 
to be absolute. One is the contentment of faith, the other 
of pride.’ The name of Christ which appears in this verse 
in the A.V. is rightly omitted in our translation, as in the R.V., 
for the support which it receives from ancient authorities is 
but meagre. It is not ‘ through’ Christ (as the A.V. has it) 
that Paul is able for anything, but in him—in vital union with 
him. The verb strengthens, or (as it may be rendered) ‘ infuses 

216 





CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


power into,’ speaks of the bestowal of a power that is inward 
and hidden. The same verb is found in Acts 9: 22, Rom. 
ApecOmst DH Oc LOm Lali tel2 2a in o24 Teac 7 This 
inward strength which Christ supplies is described in Col. 
I: 29 as ‘the divine energy which is a power within me.’ 
The verb I am able has reference to the outward manifestation 
of this hidden power. The comprehensiveness of Paul’s state- 
ment is arresting. There is no conceivable condition of life 
that he cannot face, no fortune or misfortune that he cannot 
Static meet 2tCor 252): Ore L0. 

The part of the present paragraph that ends here has 
become inseparably linked with Oliver Cromwell. Carlyle 
quotes Harvey as follows: ‘At Hampton Court, a few days 
after the death of the Lady Elizabeth, which touched him 
nearly,—being then himself under bodily distempers, fore- 
runners of that Sickness which was to death, and in his bed- 
chamber,—he called for his Bible, and desired an honourable 
and godly person there, with others, present, To read unto 
him that passage in Philippians Fourth: ‘‘ Not that I speak 
in respect of want ; ... which strengtheneth me.’’ Which read, 
—said he, to use his own words as near as I can remember 
them: ‘“‘ This Scripture did once save my life; when my 
eldest Son died ; which went as a dagger to my heart, indeed 
it did.’”’” And then repeating the words of the text himself, 
and reading the tenth and eleventh verses, of Paul’s contenta- 
tion, and submission to the will of God in all conditions,— 
said he: ‘‘ It’s true, Paul, you have learned this, and attained 
to this measure of grace: but what shall J do? Ah poor 
creature, it isa hard lesson for metotake out! I find it so!” 
But reading on to the thirteenth verse, where Paul saith, 
“* I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me,’— 
then faith began to work, and his heart to find support and 
comfort, and he said thus to himself, ‘‘ He that was Paul’s 
Christ is my Christ too!’’ And so drew waters out of the 
well of Salvation’ (Carlyle’s Letters and Speeches of Oliver 
Cromwell, vol. iv, pp. 198, 199). 

In vers. 14-16 Paul turns from his independence to speak 14 
again of his appreciation of the kindness of the Philippians. 

217 


THE EPISTLE OR” PACE Oy Pah hii bee ee 


Some measure of rebuke, as we shall see, is mingled with the 
appreciation. 

But you were kind enough to take your share in my trouble. 
Instead of but, the A.V. has ‘ notwithstanding,’ and the R.V. 
‘howbeit,’ either of which comes nearer to the meaning of the 
particle used by Paul than does the weaker but, for the particle 
brings into relief his desire to prevent his readers from drawing 
from the immediately preceding words the inference that he 
was lacking in appreciation. The words rendered you were 
kind enough represent Greek words which literally mean 
“you did well,’ or ‘ you did nobly.” The very same phrase is 
used in Acts 10: 33. With the verb in the future tense the 
phrase is common in the papyri forming part of a request with 
the meaning ‘ please’ or ‘ pray.’ This exact use is found in 
3 John 6: ‘ Pray speed them on their journey worthily of 
God.’ It is quite possible that in our present passage the 
phrase should be given a meaning more akin to its literal 
significance than the meaning given to it in our translation, 
and expressing a more generous commendation of the action 
of the Philippians than does the rendering you were kind 
enough. ‘ You did nobly,’ says the Apostle, ‘in taking your 
share in my trouble.’ 

Trouble here is wider and more inclusive than poverty ; and 
when the Apostle commends his readers for sharing his trouble 
he is thinking not merely of the pecuniary help they had sent, 
but also of the sympathy that had prompted the gift, and 
especially of the vicarious ministry of Epaphroditus their 
envoy. Still, the sending of the money was a part of their 
participation in his trouble. A gift of money may be a 
means of fellowship. 

15 Here, we think, is one of the points at which the note of 
rebuke can be detected—and that notwithstanding the fact 
that the verse has to do with acts of generosity to the Apostle 
performed by the Philippians. Why does Paul introduce the 
word Philippians P He addresses his readers after the same 
manner in 2 Cor. 6: 11 and Gal. 3:1. In the three passages, 
as it seems to us, the name is introduced in order to soften or 
tone down a rebuke, lest perchance it might seem too severe. 

218 






iS ee ee ia eee A = my 


oo ROSS SR 





SSS 





CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


But are we justified in finding a rebuke in the present verse ? 
Its opening words, when literally rendered, run thus: ‘ And 
ye yourselves also know, ye Philippians.’ Paul says that they, 
as well as he, are acquainted with their past generosity to him. 
The verb which he employs is the ordinary verb ‘ to know.’ 
Now, Rendel Harris has pointed out—in the Expositor for 
September 1898—that in 1 Thessalonians this verb in several 
of its occurrences bears the special meaning ‘you have 
admitted in your letter,’ or ‘ your letter shows that you are 
aware. That, we suggest, is the meaning it bears in our 
present passage. The Apostle, it seems, is not alone in 
remembering the past kindnesses of the Philippians! A letter 
from Philippi has made it clear that the Philippians themselves 
also remembered them. Paul was not pleased that they 
should remind him of their former gifts. “He who receives 
a kindness,’ says Cicero, ‘should never forget it; he who 
bestows a kindness should never mention it’ (Laelius, 71). 
The Philippians had not scrupled to make mention of their 
past kindnesses. 

If we are right in the surmise that the mention of the former 
gifts was in the first instance made by the Philippians, it 
follows that their feelings must have been hurt by something 
that Paul had said after he had received the gift brought by 
Epaphroditus, for we cannot think that the reminder formed 
part of the letter that accompanied the gift. The action of the 
Philippians becomes intelligible only if in his reply to that letter 
the Apostle had said something that brought disappointment 
to them and aroused their displeasure. We may be sure 
that they would detect the note of rebuke in Paul’s present 
reference to their reminder, but the word Philippians would 
show that the reproof came from a heart that was full of 
tenderness even when it was rebuking. 

Paul employs the Greek form of the Latin name Philippenses, 
and the very choice of this form may perhaps imply that as he 
wrote he had in mind the fact that Philippi was a Roman 
colony. He respects the natural pride of the Philippians in 
their Roman citizenship. See Ramsay in the Journal of Theo- 
logical Studies, vol. i, p. 116. The choice of name does not, 

219 


THE EPISTLE, OF (PAUL TO ah ARAIL EP PT as 


however, justify the inference that his readers were all of 
them Roman citizens. What proportion of them possessed 
the Roman citizenship it is impossible to say. Some of them, 
we may be sure, would possess it ; but in everyday speech all 
the inhabitants of the city could be described and addressed 
as Philippenses. 

You are well aware, says the Apostle, that in the early days 
of the gospel, when I had left Macedonia, no church but your- 
selves had any financial dealings with me. In the early days of 
the gospel can only mean at the time when Paul first preached 
the gospel in Macedonia. The clause rendered when I had 
left Macedonia admits also of being rendered ‘ when I left 
Macedonia,’ that is, ‘at the time of my departure from Mace- 
donia.” It does not of necessity refer to the time after Paul 
had left Macedonia, and we do not think that it does as a 
matter of fact refer to that time. The most natural way to 
take the next verse—ver. 16—is, we think, to regard the gifts 
sent to Thessalonica as having been sent within the time 
specified in the clause which we are now discussing. It is not 
probable that Paul, who is here disclaiming lack of apprecia- 
tion of the kindness of the Philippians, would first, in ver. 15, 
refer to gifts sent to him after he had left Macedonia, and then 
refer to earlier gifts sent to Macedonia just as if the mention of 
them were an afterthought. Moreover, the words in the early 
days of the gospel suggest that we should give to the imme- 
diately succeeding clause as early a reference as the Greek 
permits. So, with Ellicott, we believe that in ver. 15 Paul has 
in mind the dealings which the Philippians had had with him 
‘ previously to, or possibly at, his departure ’ from Macedonia. 
If, however, our translation is right in giving to the clause the 
meaning when I had left Macedonia, the reference will be to 
the supplying of the Apostle’s wants by ‘the brothers who 
came from Macedonia’ of which he speaks in 2 Cor. I1: 9. 
If, on the other hand, the clause means ‘at the time of my 
departure from Macedonia,’ Paul may be thinking of all the 
gifts that came from Philippi about that time, including those 
that came to Thessalonica and are mentioned in ver. 16, as 
well as the gift or gifts sent to Corinth and spoken of in 

220 








CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


2 Cor. 11:9. For all we know to the contrary the Philip- 
pians may have sent gifts to Beroea, the last piace Paul visited 
in Macedonia, and to Athens, the place first visited by him 
after his departure from Macedonia. If, as is possible, his 
stay in Beroea (Acts 17 : 10-13) was relatively brief as com- 
pared with his stay in Thessalonica (17 : 1-12), the help sent 
to Thessalonica might well have been thought of as coming at 
the time of his departure from Macedonia. 

No church but yourselves had any financial dealings with 
me. It is with some hesitation that we question the precise 
accuracy of this rendering. It fails, as it seems to us, to do 
justice to a certain nuance that is discernible in the Greek. In 
the most deft and delicate manner possible Paul contrives in 
these words to rebuke the Philippians for reminding him of 
their past acts of generosity. The words are literally rendered 
in the R.V.: ‘no church had fellowship with me in the matter 
of giving and receiving, but ye only.’ The expression ‘ giving 
and receiving ’ occurs in Sirach 41 : g and 42: 7, and its use by 
Paul is another indication (see on ver. 8 and ver. Io) that he 
may have been reading Sirach just before writing this chapter. 
The phrase is taken from the language of commerce, in which 
it is used of the credit and debit sides of an account. Whether 
in the present passage its reference should be limited, as in our 
translation, to the giving of financial help by the Philippians 
and the receiving of it by the Apostle is, to say the least, 
debatable. So far as the literal meaning of the words goes, 
there is a sense in which the phrase could be applied to all the 
Pauline Churches, for in the case of each and all of them there 
was a giving and a receiving—a giving of spiritual gifts on the 
part of the Apostle, and a receiving of them on the part of the 
Churches. In its ordinary commercial use the phrase would 
seem to embrace both sides of a transaction—the giving of 
the wares and the receiving of the payment. So here it 
embraces, as we think, the passing of spiritual gifts from Paul 
to the Philippians as well as the passing from them to him of 
financial help. The Philippian Church stood in a class by 
itself because in its case a double transaction had been 
effected: the things of the Spirit had passed in one direction 

221 


THE EPISTLE, ORS PAUL TO SPHERE ELIE ela 


and gifts of money in the other. This is the interpretation of 
Chrysostom, Augustine, and most of the earlier expositors. 
It is also that of Calvin, and is adopted by Ellicott and 
Lipsius in modern times. The use of the phrase is a gentle 
reminder that the gifts of the Philippians had been matched 
and more than matched by the greater gifts that had come to 
them through the ministrations of the Apostle. The same 
thought is more openly expressed in 1 Cor. 9:11: ‘If we 
sowed you the seeds of spiritual good, is it a great matter if we 
reap your worldly goods?’ Cf. also Philem. Ig. 

16 Even when I was in Thessalonica, continues the Apostle, you 
sent money more than once for my needs. In the Greek this 
verse is introduced by a particle which is not actually repre- 
sented in our translation. This particle is capable of being 
rendered in two ways: it may mean ‘that,’ introducing an 
object clause (which in the present case would be parallel with 
the clause introduced by ‘ that’ in ver. 15), or it may mean 
‘for’ or ‘ because.” Both the A.V. and the R.V. have ‘ for.’ 
If in ver. 15 we render ‘ when I had left Macedonia’ and 
understand Paul to be speaking in that verse of gifts sent to 
him after his departure from Macedonia, then the introductory 
particle in ver. 16 must be rendered by ‘that,’ inasmuch as 
gifts sent to Thessalonica cannot be an instance of gifts sent 
after he had left Macedonia. In that case ver. 16 calls atten- 
tion to an even more signal example of the kindness of the 
Philippians than was in Paul’s mind when he was writing 
ver. 15. Why, even before he had left Thessalonica they had 
sent help to him! If, on the other hand, in ver. 15 Paul is 
thinking of gifts received by him before he had left Macedonia, 
it may be that those gifts are none other than the gifts sent to 
Thessalonica. In that case ver. 15 and ver. 16 both refer to the 
same gifts, the latter verse corroborating the statement made 
in the former. Either ‘that’ or ‘for’ would then suitably 
introduce ver. 16, the latter, perhaps, being a somewhat more 
natural introduction than the former. This second method of 
interpreting vers. 15 and 16 is, we think, the more probable. 
The word ‘ even’ points to the fact that they had sent help so 
soon after the Apostle’s departure from Philippi—even at so 

222 








CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


early a date—rather than (as some maintain) to the fact that 
Thessalonica was a much larger and wealthier city than 
Philippi; for the relative wealth of the two cities would have 
no bearing at all on the relative wealth of the two Churches. 

The Greek words rendered more than once occur also in 
I Thess. 2: 18 and literally mean ‘ both once and twice.’ It 
is not possible to decide whether this means just twice and 
no more, or whether it should be given a vaguer meaning as 
in our translation. The A.V. and the R.V. both have ‘ once 
and again.” Whichever meaning we give to the phrase, this 
verse implies (as does also the tenor of certain parts of the 
Thessalonian epistles) that the length of Paul’s stay in Thessa- 
lonica was more than three weeks, which is the duration sug- 
gested by the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles. 

The word money is not actually represented in the Greek. 
Paul appears scrupulously to avoid the direct mention of money 
throughout the paragraph. The phrase ‘for my needs’ has 
some financial colouring, the preposition being common 
in the papyri to denote the object for which money is provided 
or exacted. 

The Thessalonian epistles contain no allusion to the gifts 
from Philippi. In 1 Thess. 2: 9 and 2 Thess. 3: 8 the Apostle 
speaks of his strenuous toil at Thessalonica which made him 
independent of the Thessalonians. Clearly, then, the gifts 
of the Philippians did not render toil on his part unnecessary. 


Now comes Paul’s last statement of hisindependence. This 17 


verse opens with the words rendered ‘ not that’ in ver. II: 
Paul is eager to dissipate any tendency on the part of the 
Philippians to imagine that it was the mere receiving of 
the money that gave him joy. It is not the money, he says, 
I am anxious for. What he actually says is ‘the gift,’ not 
the money, for he still seems to be deliberately avoiding the 
use of the word ‘money.’ Still, his meaning is that it is 
not the mere money he is anxious for. He uses the definite 
article, because he means the gift in any particular case— 
whatever gift they might from time to time send to him. 
The force of the present tense is that he is describing his 
habitual attitude. 
223 


THE sEPISELE: OF (PAUL POST HE SPRILIPEIANS 


What I am anxious for, he adds, is the interest that accumu- 
lates in this way to your divine credit. The repetition of I 
am anxious for is impressive. The word rendered interest is 
the ordinary Greek word for ‘ fruit,’ and so it is translated 
in the A.V. and the R.V. But in the present context, as 
Chrysostom seems to have recognized, it naturally means 
interest, in harmony with the financial tone of the passage as 
a whole. Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 321, remark 
that no example of the word used in this sense has been found 
in the papyri, but they quote the corresponding use of a 
kindred word ‘ as showing how easily this sense might arise.’ 
The epithet divine is not actually in the Greek, but its intro- 
duction is suggested and justified by the character of the verse 
as a whole. The gifts of the Philippians are an investment, 
and each adds to the amount of the interest that God places 
to their credit. The time for which the interest accumulates 
is the Day of the Lord, and the verb used for ‘ accumulate’ 
suggests the abundance of the divine reward. It is the 
advantage that comes to his helpers, not the benefit accruing 
to himself, that the Apostle values and seeks. We are 
reminded of his words to the Corinthians: ‘I want your- 
selves and not your money’ (2 Cor. 12: 14). 

18 Once again the note of gratitude is sounded. On that note 
the paragraph opened, and on that note it closes. Your debt 
to me is fully paid and more than paid !_ The first half of this 
statement appears in the R.V. as ‘I have all things.” Now 
the verb rendered ‘ I have ’ is found in the papyri and on ostraca 
as ‘a technical expression regularly employed in drawing up 
a receipt’ (Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, p. 111), 
and this usage has given to the present tense—which is the 
tense employed in our passage—the meaning ‘ I have received.’ 
That is the rendering given in the margin of the A.V. Simi- 
larly the present tense is rendered by ‘ they have received ’ 
in Matt. 6:2, 5, 16 (R.V.), and by ‘ye have received’ in 
Luke 6:24 (A.V. and R.V.). The verb is another of the 
financial terms used in this paragraph. The Apostle is giving 
his readers a receipt for their payment. Your debt to me is 
fully paid expresses his meaning exactly. Here again, as in 

224 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


ver. 15, there is a delicate hint that the gifts of the Philippians 
are after all but the payment of a debt. 

Not only is their debt fully paid, it is more than paid. 
Literally, what the Apostle says is ‘I abound.’ It is the 
verb which occurs twice in ver. 12 with the meaning ‘ ito live 
in prosperity.’ How could he be wanting in appreciation of a 
gift that more than paid any debt they owed to him? Iam 
amply supplied, he proceeds, with what you have sent by 
Epaphroditus. Now that their gift has come, no single need 
of his remains unsupplied. He piles statement upon state- 
ment to bring home to his readers the absurdity of imagining 
that he was not grateful. How could he be ungrateful when 
their gift made it possible for him to say that all his needs were 
amply supplied ? 

In the remainder of the verse Paul speaks of the gift in 
terms that set forth its value in the sight of God. This is the 
climax of his refutation of the charge of ingratitude. If the 
gift is pleasing to God, how can the Apostle harbour any 
dissatisfaction ? To God it is a fragrant perfume. As the 
italic type reminds us, the phrase is quoted from the Old 
Testament, where it is frequently employed to describe an 
offering that is pleasing to God. See, for example, Gen. 
Sree Pee ROU re ZO Lor Cy eles, 13 el wh zekeiZO uals eit 
occurs also in Sirach 50:15 (17), and furnishes yet another 
point of contact between that work and the present paragraph. 
The phrase is used in Eph. 5:2, while the two nouns that 
compose it in the Greek both occur in 2 Cor. 2: 14-16. Paul 
adds that the gift is the sort of sacrifice that God approves 
and welcomes. 

The God who values the gift as a sacrifice offered unto 19 
Himself will not be regardless of the needs of the givers. 
Cf. Prov. 19:17, Matt. 10:42, Heb. 6:10. My God, says 
Paul, will supply all your own needs from his wealth in Glory 
in Christ Jesus. My God occurs also in 1 : 3, where see the note. 
Does the Apostle here use the expression to suggest that his 
intimate relation with God gives him authority to deciare 
what God will do? Or does its use suggest the thought that 
God will not overlook or leave unrewarded a kindness done 

225 








THE EPISTLE.OF) PAUL TO THESPEILIP EIS 


tooneso intimately related to Himself? Paul cannot himself 
reward his readers; nevertheless they shall not go without 
reward. The repetition in this verse of the verb ‘ to supply,’ 
which has just been used in ver. 18, is doubtless intentional 
and significant: the Philippians have supplied the Apostle’s 
needs ; his God will supply thezy needs. Whether the Apostle 
has in mind material needs or spiritual needs or both classes 
of needs is matter of dispute among expositors. It is difficult 
to think that spiritual needs are not included, but, on the 
other hand, 2 Cor. 9:8 makes it possible, if not probable, 
that Paul is thinking of material needs as well, for there he 
says: ‘God is able to bless you with ample means, so that 
you may always have quite enough for any emergency of your 
own and ample besides for any kind act to others.’ This 
comprehensive interpretation is confirmed by the fact that 
Paul says all your own needs. 

It is from his wealth in Glory in Christ Jesus that God 
will supply their needs; or rather, more literally, ‘7m 
accordance with His wealth.’ The rewarding will be not 
merely from His wealth, but also in amanner that befits His 
wealth—on a scale worthy of His wealth. God’s wealth isa 
frequent theme in the epistles of Paul. See, for example, 
Rom. 2:4, 9:23. The words in Glory are not easy to 
interpret in the present context. By some they are taken to 
mean ‘in a glorious manner’ or ‘ gloriously,’ as though they 
described the mode of the divine rewarding. Others take them 
to mean ‘ in the glorious life of the coming age.’ If this be the 
meaning, then the needs of which Paul speaks will be spiritual 
needs ; and it may be argued that the reference to the interest 
accumulating (ver. 17) is favourable to this interpretation. 
There are others, again, who take the words in Glory closely 
with wealth, as if Paul meant that God’s wealth had its abode 
in His Glory or power (for ‘glory’ is sometimes all but 
synonymous with ‘ power’: see Sanday and Headlam on 
Rom. 6:4). This very variety of exposition shows that the 
words do not take their place easily and naturally in their 
context. Is it possible that through some accident the word 
‘glory ’ has slipped in from the next verse ? Its removal from 

226 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 10-20 


the present verse would leave the much more simple and 
intelligible expression his wealth in Christ Jesus. It is possible, 
however, that in Christ Jesus should be taken closely with 
will supply and not with wealth. In him, ‘ the ever-blessed 
sphere in which alone all is realised’ (Ellicott), will the needs 
of the Philippians be supplied. 

The great passage ends with a doxology in which glory is 20 
ascribed to God our Father for ever and ever. Asin Gal. 1:5, 
the doxology is called forth by the thought of the goodness of 
God. Nor is it out of harmony with this to suggest that its 
introduction in our passage may be due, at least in part, to 
Paul’s desire to lift his readers up into the very presence of 
God in order that any disaffection or ill-will that still remained 
in their hearts might be removed, for in His presence all ill- 
feelings wither and die. ‘ Lift up your heart to God,’ writes 
Wesley to one of his correspondents, ‘or you will be angry 
with me’ (Letters, p. 205). As is usual in doxologies, the 
word glory has the definite article in the Greek: the glory 
ascribed to God is the glory that is due to Him. 


FINAL SALUTATIONS AND BENEDICTION (IV. 21-23) 


Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers beside me 21 
salute you. All the saints salute you, especially the 22 
Imperial slaves. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be 23 
with your spirit. Amen. 


A few brief salutations and a benediction bring the letter to 
its close. These would probably be written in the Apostle’s 
own hand, for he tells us in 2 Thess. 3: 17 that a salutation in 
his own hand was a mark in every letter of his. Compare also 
TCor.10: 2%, Gal?.6 12, Col 4318. 

Why no individual Philippians are mentioned we can only 
| surmise. Why is there no greeting for Lydia and the jailer ? 
i Some special greetings may have been sent by Epaphroditus. 

Or perhaps the Apostle, in view of the dissensions in the 
| Church, omitted all personal salutations so as not to give his 
| readers any possible ground for questioning his impartiality. 
| 








227 


21 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL T0 THE UPHILIPPIANS 


Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. So also the A.V. and the 
R.V. render. To whom is this injunction addressed ? Perhaps 
to the bishops whom the Apostle greets in the opening saluta- 
tion (I: 2), for to them the epistle would be delivered, and to 
one of them would be assigned the duty of reading it to the 
assembled Church. Beet does not think the injunction is 
addressed to any small group, for he says: ‘To the Church 
collectively is committed a greeting for every member of it.’ 

The Apostle sends his greeting to every saint—to every 
member of the Church individually. Compare the greeting 
in 3 John 15: ‘salute the friends one by one.’ Trapp remarks 
that it would be ‘a great encouragement to the meaner to be 
so respected.’ In his parting word, as throughout the epistle, 
Paul makes it plain that he does not countenance their dif- 
ferences. For the word saints see on I: I. 

The word salute is common in the New Testament; and 
the papyri have shown that it was the regular word used for 
conveying a greeting at the end of a letter (see Moulton and 
Milligan, Vocabulary, p. 85). 

Grammatically the words in Christ Jesus may go either with 
salute or with every saint. Kennedy, Beet, Jones, Plummer, 
Dibelius, connect them with salute, and to this view Lightfoot 
inclines. Lipsius and Moule connect them with every saint, — 
and Ellicott regards this construction as ‘ perhaps slightly 
the more probable.’ It is no argument in favour of connect- 
ing the words with salute to say that saints is sufficiently 
defined without the addition of in Christ Jesus, for in 1 : 1 Paul 
speaks of the ‘saints in Christ Jesus.’ It gives ‘ spiritual 
emphasis to the greeting,’ as Beet observes, to take the words 
with salute. The only New Testament passages that have any 
bearing on the question are Rom. 16: 22 and 1 Cor. 16: 19, 
in both of which ‘ in the Lord’ goes with salute. 

The brothers beside me salute you, continues the Apostle. 
So in Gal. 1: 2 he mentions ‘ all the brothers who are beside 
me.’ For the term ‘ brother’ see on 1:12. Some scholars 
have felt that the present clause and the censure of 2: 21 are 
so incompatible that they cannot possibly belong to the same 
letter. In so far as there is justification for this feeling it helps 

228 


CHAPTER IV, VERSES 21-23 


to confirm our suspicions regarding the right of 2: 19-24 to 
form part of our epistle (see the notes on the paragraph) ; but 
the one text is not necessarily incompatible with the other 
(see Moffatt, Introduction to the Lit. of the N.T., p. 175). 

Who the brothers are it is not easy to say. The Philippians 
would understand. Epaphroditus can scarcely be included, 
since he would be at Philippi when the letter was read. We 
think of Prisca and Aquila, of Timotheus and Apollos who were 
at Ephesus when Paul was there. Some of those named in 
Rom. 16—if that chapter was sent to Ephesus—may well be 
among the brothers who send their greetings to Philippi. 

There follows the greeting of the whole Church at Ephesus 22 
—all the saints salute you. Compare the similar greeting in 
2 Cor. 13:13. Of one group in the Church the Apostle 
emphasizes the greeting—especially, he says, the Imperial slaves. 
This rendering might conceivably give the impression that all 
the Imperial slaves in the place from which Paul was writing 
were saints. It would be a more exact rendering of the Greek 
to say ‘ especially those who are of the number of the Imperial 
slaves.’ 

Both the A.V. and the R.V. have the literal rendering ‘ they 
that are of Caesar’s household.’ Our translation correctly 
interprets “Caesar’s household’ as the Imperial slaves; the 
term, of course, would include freedmen as well as slaves. 
The word ‘household’ could refer to the Emperor’s family, 
but the reference here is certainly to the Imperial servants. 
It has been pointed out in the Introduction that these slaves 
were to be found elsewhere than in Rome, and that there 
exists inscriptional evidence that there were at Ephesus 
associations of Imperial freedmen and slaves. In Paul's time, 
as Kennedy says, ‘ most of the Emperor’s household servants 
came from the East.’ It may be that those whose greetings 
the Apostle sends to Philippi belonged to Ephesus before 
they entered the Imperial household and were now living in 
retirement in their native city. Lightfoot, who regards 
our epistle as sent from Rome, and assumes that Rom. 16 
was sent to Rome, argues in a special note (pp. 171-8) that 
the salutations in Romans include the names of some members 

229 





THE EPISTLE, Of PAGL TO THRSPAILIPP inne 


of the Imperial household who sent their greetings to Philippi. 
He calls attention to the fact that many of the names found 
in Rom. 16 are to be met with in inscriptions, chiefly sepulchral, 
relating to the household of the Emperor found in the neigh- 
bourhood of Rome. If Rom. 16 was sent to Ephesus, it is 
still possible—inasmuch as our epistle was probably sent from 
Ephesus—to think that among the names in Rom. 16 are 
some of the Imperial slaves whose greetings are sent to 
Philippi. 

As to the reason for the special emphasis on the greeting of 
the Imperial slaves we can only guess. Apparently the Philip- 
pians were acquainted with them. They may have visited 
Philippi on some Imperial mission ; or perhaps when they 
retired from Rome they had returned to Ephesus by way of 
Macedonia and had been hospitably entertained by the 
Philippian Christians. 

23 Last of all comes the benediction: The grace of the Lord 
Jesus Christ be with your spirit. All Paul’s letters have a 
benediction at or near their close, and in every benediction 
he invokes the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ upon his readers. 
For the word grace see on 1:2. Itis ‘ peace’ that is invoked 
in the benedictions of 1 Pet. 5:14 and 3 John 14. Col. 4: 18 
has the simple form ‘ Grace be with you.’ Compare also the 
benedictions in i Timotheus, 2 Timotheus, Titus, and Hebrews. 
The most elaborate of the Pauline benedictions is that in 
2, Cor 137314. 

The Apostle prays that the grace may be with the spirit 
of his readers. So in Gal. 6:18 and Philem. 25. Cf. 2 Tim. 
4:22. In our verse the A.V. has ‘with you all’ instead 
of with your spirit, but the authority for its reading is weak. 
Paul uses the singular spirit, although a number of persons 
are addressed. Plummer compares Rom. 8:16 and 1 Thess. 
5:23. Spirit is here used, seemingly, not, as so often in Paul’s 
letters, for the regenerate nature of those who are in Christ, 
but for the inner nature of man. 

Our translation agrees with the A.V. in reading Amen. 
Westcott and Hort and the R.V. omit it, but the evidence for 
it is strong. 

230 





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